Anko Family Fairy Tales
by roughdiamond5
Summary: Two mage brothers. One childhood friend. One longtime forest-dweller. Throw in a wicked stepfamily, a beanstalk, some glass slippers, and the ever-present woods, and we may just have ourselves a fairy tale. [Or, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella, combined and retold with the Anko Family and company.]
1. Prologue

**I told myself this fic would be short and cute, and then it was long and angst. This is becoming a pattern with me.**

 **A few details put me on the fence about posting this fic at all, but I've resolved to myself to stop letting my fics die in my Dropbox at the request of my inner editor. The character appearances and dynamics in this fic actually have a few things in common with a trilogy draft I've been playing with, so I guess this 20K-word fic will be a litmus test about whether to release the longer one.**

 **This fic will have four chapters, including this one.**

Once upon a time, in the middle of the woods, there lived two brothers and their mother. The three of them loved one another dearly. They lived solitary lives at the edge of a village, less of their own will than the fact that the mother was a witch, the only one in the region, and the village didn't especially approve of how her healing potions and farming charms came into being (much as they needed them and paid accordingly).

To the relief of Valka, the mother, one man did see past superstition and choose to marry her: a man named Aldrich, who himself had two sons.

Lukas, the elder son, then twelve years old, took one look at his new brothers and frowned. "Will we tell them about me?" he asked his mother, holding the hand of his six-year-old brother Emil a little tighter.

"We will," said his mother placidly, watching her new husband and sons step down from their carriage. "I'm sure Gilbert and Ludwig are open-minded young boys. You'll have new friends, you know. Brothers, even."

This illusion was fractured that night at dinner, when Gilbert, the older of Aldrich's sons, took a wide and considering look at Lukas and Emil.

"Are you a witch too?" he asked Lukas, the very question Lukas had been dreading.

"Yes," said Lukas quietly. "Mother is teaching me."

"So you'll be doing the chores then."

It was not the development Lukas had hoped for, but he counted himself and Emil lucky that at least they weren't going to be chased out of their own house.

Lukas secretly wondered why his mother, usually so calm and content with their lives, had chosen to marry. He learned her reason only a few months later, at her deathbed.

"I love you more than all the world," she said, stroking his hair as he struggled to hold back tears. "You and Emil both. But the cottage _and_ your brother are too much to put on your shoulders."

"But we won't have—" _you_ , Lukas couldn't quite choke out.

His mother smiled, less serenely with every day. "You'll have each other. And your new father and brothers." Slowly she planted a kiss on his forehead. "Take care of them, my Lukas. Like I always knew you would."

Valka left her family overnight, leaving a hole in her sons' lives to the point that Emil wept whenever Gilbert tried to take her seat at the table beside his father.

Aldrich and his sons were admittedly less sentimental.

Aldrich took Lukas aside once he'd set his brother to bed. "Your mother left us in trouble," said Aldrich. "Her healing potions and spells were all the income we had available to us. There's no work for me to be done in this forest." He looked outside the window at the crops with a snort.

"So," Aldrich continued, "you will replace your mother. She has taught you what she knows, I imagine."

Lukas kept quiet.

"Has she?"

"Yes," murmured Lukas. "Mostly. I know potions much better."

"Pity, the crop spells brought in more money," said Aldrich. "All the same, you will continue caring for the crops to hone your skills. In your spare time, you will make the same potions your mother did. We depend on you, Lukas," said Aldrich, and for the first time he didn't sound unkind to be saying it.

Lukas's hope slowly grew. "Mother said I would be attending school soon," he ventured. "I can already read and write, but she was hoping for me and Emil to make friends with the other children."

Not that Lukas didn't have friends already, he supposed. Around the time Emil was born, Lukas had been venturing in the forest and befriended a cheery young boy named Mathias who also lived in the woods. Lukas had had to stop visiting as Valka began courting and needed Lukas at home, but he'd promised Mathias to see him in school.

"Well now," tisked Aldrich. Lukas's hope sunk to his feet. "As Emil has shown no traces of magic, he may attend. _You_ , on the other hand…well, you will frankly taint my own sons in the eyes of the other children. You and your magic belong here. And you'll be too busy, won't you?" Aldrich raised an eyebrow. "A young wizard has a different place than more… _normal_ boys."

And so, with dismay, Lukas's indentured life began.

Lukas and Emil developed a daily routine. Every morning before sunrise, Lukas awoke and tended to the livestock: the few cows, chickens, and sheep they had. He took what was needed for breakfast and hastened to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Aldrich, Gilbert, and Ludwig would only come when called: Gilbert would loudly and sloppily eat while Aldrich and Ludwig maintained their manners but watched Lukas stoically, as if daring him to sit among them.

Gilbert and Ludwig left for school, while Emil—not yet old enough to attend—would awaken and eat his own breakfast and Lukas would clean the dishes. At Emil's request, Lukas would let him tend the garden while Lukas alternatively plowed, sowed, and harvested the fields depending on the season. Lukas frankly understood Emil's reluctance to stay indoors; the only other person inside was Aldrich, who spent his time in correspondence with people Lukas didn't dare to ask about but assumed were former business partners. He demanded absolute silence

In the afternoons, Aldrich would go to town—possibly for meetings, possibly for a drink, Lukas never asked and Aldrich never told—and Lukas and Emil would retreat to the shack alongside the proper house. Here, Lukas brewed potions to sell and, rather than telling Emil how to make them, made Emil read aloud to him from readers and spellbooks alike.

Emil was going to go to school, Lukas vowed. He was going to be the best of his class, because he would never be the most popular for the witches' blood that ran through his veins, and he was going to find himself a life away from here.

In the evening Aldrich returned and Lukas left, carrying that day's potions for sale. On all but the worst weather days, he let Emil come along. On the days it was too cold or raining too hard, Emil cried.

"Gilbert always wants to play games," he would sniff.

"That's not so bad," Lukas would say, but deep down he knew that Gilbert was learning quickly to hate witches as much as the other children, and that any games Gilbert had in mind could very well involve Emil getting hurt. "And there's always Ludwig."

"Ludwig won't speak to me," Emil would return. And Lukas couldn't argue. But he had to leave, and Emil had to get used to the silent judgment of their kind.

Lukas would return hours later, coins jingling in a bag he had to surrender to Aldrich every day for counting. Aldrich's contribution was to keep the order records and the accounts in order. Lukas ended every day hanging his head in front of a man who should have been his father, hearing the laughter of boys who should have been brothers, while Emil waited a door away, half asleep but unable to drift off without a story of fairies or giants or heroes.

Emil's favorite stories were of the noble prince Mathias, who slayed giants and ogres alike to defend a noble kingdom of fair folk and magic-wielders alike. The real Mathias was probably no more than a hazy memory to him, a shock of blond hair and a wide smile that Emil lost as easily as his toddler's waddle.

But when Emil had drifted to sleep, Lukas's exhausted eyes stayed open only a few seconds more, to remember the one person outside his family who had learned what he was and smiled.

* * *

Years passed. Lukas grew, shorter and leaner than he would have liked, but such was the price of leaving the best portions to Emil. Emil was twelve years old against Lukas's eighteen, and due to start school. Gilbert, already finished with school for a year, had found a trade but had not left the house.

 _Why would he?_ Lukas thought bitterly as he trudged through the muddy village streets with his potions. Today was a rainy day. _With me at his beck and call, he has a better life than he would out here._

He was nearly done with deliveries for the day when he heard a voice in the distance.

"Lukas?"

Almost no one used his name here. Most called him "boy", though by many standards he wasn't anymore. Maybe some would start using "witch", not knowing or caring that a male one was a wizard. He ignored the voice, assuming it was meant for someone else.

"Lukas!"

The voice was coming closer. Despite himself, Lukas turned.

Growing closer by the second, dressed in a red tunic and taller and more freckled than he had any right to be, was Mathias.

For a moment, Lukas couldn't speak.

Mathias stopped only a few feet away from Lukas, taking in his rain-drenched cloak and the messenger bag full of potion bottles, and broke into a wide grin, the likes of which lit up his entire face. "I can't believe—er, I—I really hoped it was you!"

Lukas was blushing, he realized belatedly. For a moment all thoughts of coins, of Aldrich, of how Emil was probably worried sick, left his mind, and he was only a young man breathless with awe for the most handsome man he'd ever seen.

"I tried to tell you," Mathias was rattling on, "but I didn't realize we were closer to different villages, so my school was a different one from yours. I tried to find your home, but then my father didn't want me wandering, and then he got sick, so I had to…" He trails off, and then shakes his head. "But that's not important now. How are you? How's Emil?"

And the unguarded interest in his eyes, the tilt of his head, the boyish freckles on his face and the broadness of his shoulders, turned the ache in Lukas's chest from hope to love.

Then, because fate was cruel and had no good intentions for Lukas, his worn, waterlogged leather shoes split open to reveal one of his toes. Within seconds Lukas saw himself as Mathias must surely see him: drenched and hungry and too short for his age and an outcast not worth talking to.

"I'm…fine," said Lukas unconvincingly, shifting his balance to hide the protruding toe. Water was dripping in his eyes. At least Mathias had a cloak. "Emil is fine. Due to start school soon."

"And you're finished, I guess," said Mathias with a softening grin. "I, uh, I guess you had your hands full, huh? Since you had to learn two different trades."

Despite his shame and his need to get somewhere dry, Lukas had to know. "What's your trade, then?"

"Oh. Uh, I'm working on it. Trying to sell wooden figurines around the villages. In the meantime, I'm farming and doing some fixing."

Lukas could see it in the ropy muscles of his arms. Mathias had no siblings, this he knew. Everything he grew, he ate himself. And the sturdiness of his hands definitely—

Lukas had to stop this.

"Well," said Lukas. "It's good to see you." He turned to leave.

"Wait!"

Lukas froze. He pressed his lips together, and turned back.

"Er…ah, do you want to visit? Sometime?" For the first time since this conversation started, Mathias looked unsure. After a moment, he bit his lip. "It's been ages, Lukas. I wanted to visit you, really."

"I believe you," said Lukas quietly. "But…I can't spare the time. These days."

"Ah. Yeah, you're probably…high in demand."

 _Oh, if only._

"I'll see you," said Lukas by way of farewell. "Now that you've found this village."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll see you." Mathias gave him one last, lingering look, and Lukas had to turn away before he committed the softness in Mathias's expression to memory.

* * *

Lukas surrendered his coins to Aldrich and came to his room to find Emil crying, something he hadn't done since he was nine.

"What's wrong?" Lukas asked, immediately settling himself beside his brother.

"I cast a spell," Emil spat out.

Lukas froze. "What spell?" he asked in trepidation.

Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it was a drop of potion spilled and left uncleaned.

"I brought a plant back to life."

Despite himself, Lukas lost his breath. This was a spell that Lukas himself couldn't do. He'd tried, certainly, but for all Aldrich's hopes that Lukas's farming would gain him the familiarity with agricultural spells his mother had had, it seems he'd invested in the wrong wizard.

Lukas could see it now. His brother was the same age now as Lukas had been when Aldrich and his sons had moved to their house. If Aldrich found out that Emil had magic ability as well as ancestry, he'd almost certainly indenture both of them to this house, and live off of their skills until his dying day. Lukas had tried so hard to take the brunt of the labor, but because of this new development, Emil would have to take his own share, almost in lockstep with Lukas's own life.

And for what? All the money Lukas made for their family went to Aldrich, and through him to Gilbert and Ludwig. Gilbert was burning through gold at an alarming rate, starting and failing at his own businesses, and Ludwig was politely demanding to be sent to another city to continue his education once he'd finished with the village school. And Aldrich so _clearly_ (Lukas couldn't keep the bitterness out of his own thoughts) prized his own sons ahead of the ones who brought in the money that kept them alive and prosperous, and if Emil was going to be yoked into this life…

No. Lukas couldn't let that happen.

Lukas wrapped an arm around his brother, whose tears were steadily drying, and swore, "I'll think of something."

* * *

The idea struck him belatedly, given that Lukas surrendered every non-Emil thought to Mathias for days after their chance encounter. But the minute he had it—toiling in the fields while Emil picked at the garden—he clenched it until the earliest moment he could act on it.

"Emil," he said once they'd shut the door to the potion shack, "I need you to take down a letter for me."

Emil paused. "You never have letters to write."

"Today I do. Get the parchment." Lukas could very well write the letter himself, but due to the flu spreading around the village, he was backed up with potions orders and on a tight schedule. And besides, he didn't have a better idea of how to say goodbye to Emil.

Frowning, Emil grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill.

Lukas rifled both for ingredients and for the right way to greet a man he couldn't afford to be in love with. "…'Mathias,'" he settled for.

Emil paused. "From the stories?"

"No, that's the greeting. Write it. 'Dear Mathias', if you want."

Emil hummed skeptically and began writing.

"I know I'm asking you an enormous favor," dictated Lukas, the idea becoming crazier and more desperate as he voiced it, "but there's no one else I can turn to. My brother, Emil, is a wizard like me."

Emil's eyes widened, and he glanced up at Lukas between words.

"I'm begging you," dictated Lukas, keeping his eyes trained on his brew, "to take care of him. Adopt him as your own brother, like we pretended when we were children. I'll send for him when I can. If I can. Please." His hands trembled, and he set down the clay jar he was pouring from. "He's the only family I have."

Emil set down the quill. For twelve years old, he was already so mature, but his widened eyes reminded Lukas of just how young he really was. "Lukas," he murmured. He leapt off the stool he was perched upon and wrapped his arms around his brother's waist.

"Don't make me go," he gasped into Lukas's tunic.

Lukas wrapped his arms around Emil's shoulders. "If I knew another way, I'd do it." He rubbed his brother's as they both tried not to let loose their tears. "But I can't let you stay here."

 **As I was editing Mathias's and Lukas's first re-meeting, It's You That I Want by The Yearning came up on the radio, so I hereby claim it as a dennor OTP song and the honorary song for this chapter.**

 **I adore Gil and Ludwig, so I'm not going for a truly "evil" thing with their family. Aldrich is just a very practical man who knows a good opportunity when he sees one (and has about as much respect for wizards as the rest of the village).**


	2. Little Red Riding Hood

**Note: in this story, "fair folk" refers to all beings that aren't strictly human or which deal with magic - witches, wizards, magical creatures, and the like. I don't just mean "fairy", which I think most people default to when they read the term.**

Emil took a shuddering breath and stepped into the woods.

Lukas had given him painstakingly exact directions, to the point that Emil wondered how on earth he could remember information that was several years old. He was already struggling to wrap his head around the fact that Mathias was _real_ , not a figment of Lukas's stories, not a knight but a common person like them. Or uncommon, to have more of Lukas's trust than did their stepfather and stepbrothers.

Emil squeezed his eyes shut for only a second, clenching his basket handle tighter. That was the guise, that Emil was going to picnic outside the village while Lukas sold his potions. Otherwise Aldrich would wonder why Emil was bringing a bag of his blanket and his clothes and his single book and Lukas's letter, and his stuffed puffin that Mother had made back when she was still living. Aldrich couldn't know he was leaving until he was gone.

That knowledge didn't make the basket any lighter.

Emil stepped over roots and leaves and reviewed the stories Lukas had told him about what lurked in the woods. Witches lived in the woods partly to keep magical creatures at bay, but Mother had been dead for years and Lukas had neither the time nor the knowledge to face the trolls and huldre and other magical things that might hurt him.

Or not hurt him, Emil hoped. He'd lived in a cottage in the woods his entire life and never seen a fair folk. And there were, after all, creatures like the Fossegrimmen, which played violins under waterfalls. He could meet a Fossegrimmen.

Or a nokk, which also played the violin, but lured humans to thin ice and then dragged them underwater.

"Well," he muttered to himself, trying to muster up the stony-faced courage of his brother, "then I'd better not meet a nokk."

His basket was getting heavier the more he carried it, even when he shifted it from one hand to the other. He was beginning to wish that he'd brought a sack, just something to carry on his back once he didn't have to keep up appearances. But Lukas had been so insistent that he had to leave this day, and this afternoon at that, and in their haste he'd thought only of what to bring, not how to bring it.

"Would it really have been so bad to stay?" Emil asked himself, trying to keep himself calm with the sound of his own voice. "Oh, who am I kidding, of course it would have been. I'd have to— _ugh_ "—he'd stepped into animal dung—"tend the garden _and_ the animals _and_ the crops and— _mmph_ "—he shifted the basket to his raw other hand—"I'd never go to school, and Lukas wanted so badly for me to go and _agh!_ "—a flock of birds in the distance took flight all at once and startled him.

He inhaled through his nose and took another step. He felt very small in these woods.

"And maybe Mathias will be nice. He has to be, if Lukas made him such a hero in those stories."

 _Or he's just better than Aldrich_ , an unwanted thought informed him, _which isn't saying much._

"Aldrich's not _that_ bad," muttered Emil. "He wants what's best for the family."

 _His family._

"And he didn't cast out me and Lukas, especially with Lukas being a wizard."

 _And you too, now._

"And at least he manages everything."

 _While you and your brother did all the work worth doing. While Lukas was treated like a slave, and you like someone who doesn't exist._

"Never mind," huffed Emil to himself. He always felt bad for it, but in his angriest moments, he bitterly thought that at least Lukas wasn't kept in hiding like Emil was. Even if it was best that Emil remain out of sight, unused. Even if Emil knew that Lukas worked harder and suffered more than he'd ever deserved.

Had the woods always been this dim?

It was fall, Emil supposed, so of course the sun would set a little earlier every day. Lukas had sent him off in the sunny afternoon, but with the canopy of trees, Emil barely knew where he was going, and was only half sure this was the path he was supposed to follow. Lukas had given him landmarks and signs to look out for, but he hadn't seen a single sign so far, and he couldn't even see the sun to know if he was close to sunset, and his hands were rubbed raw from the basket, and why did he have to leave home and Lukas and everything he'd ever known to _live with a stranger_ and—

Emil dropped the basket, not caring what rolled out as he did, and covered his face with his hands and tried not to cry in the middle of the forest path.

A cool breeze swept past him.

"Are you lost?"

Emil looked up and blinked. There, on the hill to his right, was a boy only a little older than he was. He had black hair and eyes too dark to tell the color from a distance, and he looked mildly foreign. He stood with his arms crossed, calmly examining Emil.

When Emil didn't respond, the boy sauntered down the hill so gracefully that Emil nearly ached with jealousy at his ease. The boy stopped and picked up, of all things, Mr. Puffin. That must have been what rolled out of the basket when Emil dropped it.

"That's mine," Emil said. His voice sounded weaker than he'd have liked.

"I figured," said the boy. Up close, his eyes were dark brown and his eyebrows were admittedly thicker than average. He stared down at the puffin as if thinking, maybe trying to remember something, and then held it out. Emil would have to step forward to take it from his hand.

"So what are you doing out here, bird mage?"

Emil gaped. "I…how…it's a _puffin._ "

"Puffin, then." The boy kept holding it out, but examined it once again. "Doesn't look like much of an effective caster."

Emil took the few steps forward and yanked Mr. Puffin out of the boy's outstretched hand. "I don't have a caster," he snapped, "and I'm not a mage, I'm a _wizard._ "

"Mages can be boys or girls," said the boy with a hint of a smirk. "I feel like that's a fairer name. At least it gives you a bit of mystery until people meet you."

"And I suppose you know _so much_ about wizards."

The boy shrugged.

Belatedly, Emil realized that this was the first sustained conversation he'd had beyond himself and Lukas in quite some time. As he'd gotten older, even the children whose parents bought Lukas's potions had stopped talking to him. "…Why are you in the woods?" Emil eventually asked.

"I wanted to ask you the same, actually," said the boy. He shifted his balance to one leg and held his hands behind his back. "Visiting someone?"

"Moving." Emil looked disdainfully at his basket.

"And that basket was all you had, I suppose."

"It was a surprise move. I didn't want to."

"I could tell," said the boy quietly. He let Emil's moment of weakness linger between them for only a few moments. Then he cleared his throat. "I could get you where you're going."

"You don't know where I'm going."

"I would if you told me."

"What if you don't know?"

"Then I could at least walk with you until you find the right path."

Emil narrowed his eyes. "Why? You know I'm a wizard."

"So?"

"So don't you want to…ignore me, or something?"

The boy shrugged again. "Do you want me to?"

Emil didn't answer.

The boy picked up Emil's basket. "Come on. The path branches off a bit from here." He waited for Emil to start walking, and after a few seconds, Emil did.

"Thanks, I suppose," said Emil, stretching his hands to reduce the rawness left from the basket handles. "I'm Emil."

"Leon."

"Do you live near here?"

"A bit further in."

"In the woods?"

"That'd be the place. There's a nice cottage."

"Do you live alone?"

"I used to." Leon's tone said he was finished with the topic. "So tell me why you're moving."

"You already know. I'm a wizard. Mage. Whatever you want to call it."

"So?"

"So, my brother already is one."

"And…I guess there can't be two of you?"

"One's enough." Emil decides to close this topic too. He's not sure he's ready to think about it.

They amble along the path, Leon nearly making a point of walking behind Emil despite that he'd offered to lead the way.

"You know," said Emil, "most people walk in front when they lead."

"Call me a nonconformist. I'm already carrying the basket."

"I can take it back now."

"It's fine."

Emil eyed him. "You know, I don't have any money in that. Probably nothing worth selling, either."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Relax, it's not like I'm Robin Hood, out to steal your secret money," said Leon, rolling his eyes. "It's just that someone dressed as you are wouldn't be carrying money in a basket. Or at all, probably."

Emil wasn't sure whether to be offended. He decided to follow up on the reference he didn't understand. "Who's Robin Hood?"

"Oh, he's a man who comes from far away. A friend told me about him. He's a robber who steals from the rich and gives to the poor."

Emil snorts. "There's no way someone would do that."

"Oh no? He has a whole band of followers who live in the woods."

"Are you one of them?"

"Me? No. But I like hearing about them. It makes me feel nobler than I am."

Leon talked suspiciously eloquently for being, Emil would guess, only fourteen years old. But he had a good voice and a quiet but clear enthusiasm when he began to tell Emil about some of Robin Hood's endeavors, so Emil happily let him talk as they walked. Leon never appeared to tire of carrying the basket, and it wasn't until Emil saw the sun through the trees on the horizon that he realized—

"I never told you where I was going."

"Relax," said Leon. He certainly seemed as calm as he thought Emil should be. "I had a guess."

"I guess there aren't too many people who live in the woods."

"Not especially. Just your family, and maybe a few others."

"…I never mentioned my family. Just my brother."

Leon was silent for a moment. "…I suppose you didn't."

"You knew my mother?"

"I saw her. She didn't socialize much, though."

"She went out into the forest sometimes."

"I saw you."

Emil turned to look Leon in the eye. Leon avoided him.

"Gardening with your brother every day. I saw when he left you behind. And when he took you with him."

"We never strayed from the path. And we never saw you there, either." Something in Emil's gut is sinking. "Just how far in the woods do you live?"

"Like I said," said Leon quietly, "just a little further in. We're almost there."

"Really? To Mathias's house?"

"Better. Mine."

Emil blanched, and as Leon took half a step ahead to truly guide the way, Emil saw it.

A tail.

"You're a—" Emil gasped.

But he couldn't finish the thought, because Leon offered one toothy grin and shoved Emil into a hill covered with hanging moss, and Emil toppled in.

Leon cleared the moss away and set down the basket as Emil groaned and righted himself. The hill wasn't a hill after all—it was the beginning of a long and dark cave, and Emil had just been shoved inside. Emil whipped around to see Leon slowly lift his tail from his trousers, a thin cow-like tail that was surely the reason why he walked behind or beside Emil all this time.

"What are you going to do?" asked Emil, his voice stronger than he felt. "Is it true that you suck out people's souls? Or just trap us in the caves?"

"Why don't you start with what I _am?_ " said Leon.

"A huldre," spat Emil.

"Huldrekall, technically, since I'm male," said Leon. "One of the last of the forest for hundreds of years. Your mother tried to find me, but she could never quite do it. Not even the newest mage of this forest could manage to find the cure."

"The cure?" demanded Emil. As far as Lukas and Mother had told him, huldre were doomed to their existence. If Lukas were seeking a cure for a magical creature's behavior on top of his other tasks, Emil was sure he'd have heard about it.

"Oh, it varies," scoffed Leon with a clear bitter undertone, "but no matter. It won't be you who finds it, puffin mage."

"What makes you so sure?" Emil wondered where his sudden bravado came from, but a moment later he knew: now he had finally found something to be afraid of, and he could confront it at last. The unknown had worried him more than the known.

"Didn't you hear?" Leon snapped as he began dragging boulders. To seal the cave, Emil knew. "Two mages before you have tried."

Emil wracked his brain. In fairy tales, the third time had always been the charm, the third person the one to save the day. It was a crazy chance, but no crazier than being caught and trapped by a huldre on his first trip alone through the woods.

Would something religious do the trick? No, that was what non-wizards did to make themselves feel better. A spell? But what did Emil know? The only magic he knew was—

Life?

Emil scrambled to the boulders Leon was quickly amassing and placed his hand on the topmost one. The harder he breathed and the more he muttered wordless sounds to himself, the faster it grew—a fine moss that shrouded the boulder.

Leon looked at it, and then at him.

"Right," he said, and set another boulder on top of it.

The boulder slid off the moss and to the ground.

Leon frowned, lifted it, and set it down again.

The boulder slipped again and dropped at Leon's feet.

"That's the best you have?" demanded Leon.

"I'm not _much_ of a wizard," retorted Emil. And as Leon leaned down to pick up the boulder one more time, Emil vaulted over the wall and back into the forest.

"No!" Leon shouted, swiveling around as Emil took several more steps of distance. "Don't you understand? I haven't eaten in a _hundred years_ , and after all that time, even a mage will do!"

Emil stood still, eying the basket and his chances of grabbing it. Inside, he had his book of fairy tales, not that he was going to stop and read it when Leon could very well—well, something.

Leon was one of the fair folk. All the stories of the fair folk involved deals.

"Let's make a deal!" Emil yelled, and the sound of it echoed across the forest.

"A deal?" Leon sounded ready to laugh.

"You're one of the fair folk. You have to honor it."

"There haven't been enough fair folk around here for a long time to justify keeping deals," Leon countered.

"But you're not saying no."

Leon said nothing.

Emil took a shaky breath. "Give me safe passage to the home of Mathias." He wished he knew Mathias's last name so he could be even more specific—the more specific, the better, with these fair folk deals—"and I will…give you my puffin."

"…I don't know where your Mathias is."

Emil deflated.

"But I can take you to the other mage."

"Lukas?" Emil sighed. What a journey, to end up back home, when Lukas had tried to set him free.

Leon shook his head. "Lukas doesn't own this forest. He hasn't come into it. But Arthur has."

"…Take me to Arthur."

Leon scowled. Then nodded.

"And bring the basket!" Emil added as an afterthought.

Leon lifted the basket and walked to Emil's side, where Emil snatched the basket from him. When he looked up, Leon had his hand out to shake.

"It can't be anything less than a pact," Leon said warningly.

Emil looked down at the hand. What else could he do?

He shook it.

* * *

They walked in silence until sunset.

"I'm still hungry," grumbled Leon.

"I'm sure I don't taste very good," said Emil. Much of his adrenaline had left him while he was walking.

"Mage souls are too…spicy," said Leon, searching for a human-tongue equivalent. "I wouldn't have liked it."

"But you'd have eaten it."

"Not many people wander through here these days. And those who do know how to evade me."

"Oh? How do they do that?"

"Well, your friend Mathias covered his tracks home, for example. Something his family has done for generations."

"So you _do_ know him."

"But not where he lives. Duh."

"…What's he like?"

"Blond. Loud. Smiled every time he saw you or your brother."

"I don't remember ever—"

"You were a baby. Lukas brought you to meet him a few times."

"…You're old, aren't you?"

"I barely remember my human life, if that's what you mean," said Leon a bit proudly.

"But…you're one of the last of your kind."

The pride deflated out of Leon. "Yes."

"Were they cured?"

"Vanquished, mostly. Killed," he added, for Emil's benefit. "But new mage rules have spread around asking for cures instead."

"Why?"

"Magic is decreasing in the world. Non-mages are developing tools and needing less of you. And suspecting more of you, as I'm sure you've noticed. As mages suffer, so do the other creatures, and vice versa."

"So clearly the best solution is to eat my soul."

"Like I said. I'm hungry."

* * *

After a while, Emil could barely see the branches he was supposed to be stepping over, so Leon sighed and set up a fire. When Emil asked if that would attract anything dangerous, Leon simply gave him a look. Emil supposed Leon was dangerous enough.

"Why did you accept my puffin?" asked Emil, once Leon had satisfied himself with the fire's size and settled himself across from Emil.

"Why not?"

Emil didn't want to mention that it might not be of enough value. Leon probably already knew.

"Maybe that'll be the cure," said Leon quietly.

Emil's head snapped up. "I thought you didn't want to be cured."

"When did I ever say that?"

"…You sure didn't act like it."

"And you don't act like you're a mage."

"Well I only _just started_ being one. You've been a huldre—something, for ages."

"Do you know where we come from?" Leon asked abruptly. "I bet you don't."

"Then tell me."

"We're just…children."

Emil said nothing.

"Dirty children. That's all. Cursed by the magic of the woods when we got lost."

"I got lost."

"The woods have changed. Mages have channeled the magic out of their surroundings and into their craft, and magical creatures have stopped forming as a result."

"So instead of being turned into what you are, I was going to be—"

"Would you _stop?_ " Leon demanded. "You act like being eaten is the worst thing that could have happened to you. What if I'd finished the wall but I couldn't find you?"

"I would have found my way out."

"Good luck. Getting lost in those caves is how we _became_ huldre and huldrekall. You either are eaten by one of us, or you live long enough to become one of us. Or, with the increasing lack of magic in those tunnels, you die."

Leon's expression, angered squinting at the fire, shut down the conversation. Emil sighed and huddled a bit closer to the flames.

"…Do you miss it?" he eventually asked. "Being human?"

"Like I said, I barely remember it."

"Do you miss what you remember?" Emil sighed quietly. "I miss Lukas."

"…I had an older brother."

"Me too."

" _Much_ older. Ten or fifteen years. I don't remember. He was nearly an adult when I was still a child. But there were so many of us to look after. He liked to tell me stories too."

"…Do you think his family is still around?"

"They moved long ago. I watched."

Emil didn't know what to offer for comfort.

* * *

Emil must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Leon was kicking him awake.

"Up," Leon said. "Arthur lets down the wards at dawn."

"Wards?" Emil asked, wary already. "What else is out here?"

"Plenty," said Leon, "but none of it will get you if you stay with me."

Emil didn't feel especially reassured, but he was happy to be on the move again. Closer to Arthur, closer to Mathias, and further away from Leon and his craving for Emil's soul.

Though, he thought as he walked, he did feel a little bad for Leon. Living alone for so long, being _hungry_ for so long, was definitely worse than his own life. Emil never expected he'd find a life worse than his or Lukas's, apart from being homeless. But being homeless and _brotherless_ had never been a situation Emil had imagined for himself. And Leon lived it every day.

They walked in silence, and Emil slowly became able to distinguish one tree from another as dawn broke. Just as the first rays of the sun began to peek through the trees, Leon stopped at the bottom of a hill.

"This is Arthur's place," he said to Emil.

"Is this the cottage in the woods you mentioned?" Emil asked.

"It used to be mine. And then Arthur came. Come on," said Leon.

The more Emil thought about it, the more subdued Leon had been since last night's talk, and likely not from fatigue. He was certainly less charming than he'd been when they'd first met, but now that there were no (or few, at least) lies between them, Emil almost preferred this version of Leon. His quiet quips felt sincerer than his earlier swarthiness.

And through interacting with Leon, he was learning to be less homesick, more independent. It wasn't the path he'd really wanted for himself, but he would have to take it. Through Leon, he'd learned that—much to his surprise—he didn't have as much to fear as he'd thought.

Leon walked Emil most of the way up the hill, but stopped short of the edge of the garden. "I can't go further," he said simply.

Emil nodded and, with only the slightest amount of hesitation, set the basket down and rummaged for Mr. Puffin. He looked at its worn beak and wings, remembering all the times he'd clenched it as a child and all the times Lukas had had to sew back a piece that had fallen off.

"You know," said Emil after a moment had passed. "We don't… _have_ to say goodbye here."

"I don't suppose you're saying that just so you can see the puffin more."

"Kind of. But also not really." Emil dropped his shoulders and held Mr. Puffin out to Leon, just as Leon had done upon first meeting him. "I could use a friend. Someone who knows about mages and doesn't mind that I am one."

Leon didn't make any motion to take the puffin. "I'm not the kind of friend you need."

"Maybe not. But you're the kind I want. And maybe you'll learn to want me too."

Leon looked between the puffin and Emil's face. Something in his expression became unguarded. "I want that," he said, and reached up to take Mr. Puffin.

Suddenly and without warning, his grip on Mr. Puffin turned into a clench. He let out a sharp gasp.

"Leon?" Emil asked.

Leon fell to his knees, pinning the stuffed puffin to the ground as he panted on all fours. As he gave a low moan, his tail slowly, slowly retreated into his body. Emil watched, enraptured and a little frightened, as Leon's panting resided after what felt like minutes but was likely only a few seconds.

Slowly, Leon rose and examined his hands.

"Well," came a voice from behind Emil, "it seems _someone_ has succeeded where I couldn't."

Emil swiveled around to see a man with sandy blond hair and green eyes that couldn't seem to decide between happiness and jealousy. The man could barely have been twenty-five years old, and he crossed his arms in a way that almost suggested "I told you so". He raised one eyebrow. If Leon's eyebrows were thick, this man's were enormous.

"Arthur," Leon gasped. "He—"

"Broke the curse, yes, I saw," said Arthur in a mild foreigner's accent. "It was one of the reasons I waited so long to come greet you. Congratulations," he said to Leon, "and a second congratulations to my young colleague." He nodded to Emil, now clearly amused. Emil tried to stand taller, knowing that he looked like nothing more than a young boy to Arthur. Although he was.

"I didn't use any spells," said Emil, and whether he was proud or defensive about it, he didn't quite know.

"You don't need a spell to perform magic," Arthur tutted, "but I'm not romantic enough to go on about the power of friendship. Not that I'm sure that's what did it," he said with a shrug. "It could have been the humanitarianism of the act, or maybe a boy surrendering his toy to become a man, or maybe—" His green eyes lit up as he began to consider the possibilities, but then he cleared his throat when he saw Emil and Leon looking at each other and then at him in confusion. "Well. No matter. Tea and breakfast, then?"

Arthur invited the two of them into his cottage and hosted them with eggs and toast and tea. Emil enjoyed sitting at a table—better yet, one where he was welcome, unlike Aldrich would suggest—but even more he enjoyed watching Leon eat his first meal of not-souls in who-knew-how-long. Leon seemed to want to try ten of everything, and his bitterness from their talks last night faded into a contentedness that Emil almost envied.

When Leon caught him looking, he grinned. After only a pause, Emil smiled back.

Once Emil had explained their story and everyone had had their fill (and Leon had been promised seconds of anything he liked once he'd digested a bit), Arthur examined the two of them. "I suppose you'll want to get to Mathias, then," he said.

"Yes, I'm sure my brother will be contacting him later to see if I've made it," said Emil. For the first time since he'd left home, he felt as if he understood just how much Lukas meant to look out for him. He just had to be in danger, and then to accidentally get out of danger, to see it.

"Right," said Arthur. And then his gaze turned to Leon, who was scraping flakes of pepper off his plate with a fork and not looking at either of them.

Emil pursed his lips. "It might be a burden, but…we could ask Mathias if he could take two people."

"You think?" Leon asked. "I wouldn't be very helpful. Having been living in the forest and all."

"I'm sure that's quite alright," Arthur jutted in. "You know your way around, after all. You can find supplies, berries, all that."

"You just don't want me back in this cottage," snorted Leon.

Arthur smiled faintly. "It's a nice cottage. And I sense I'm still needed here, until you"—he turned to Emil—"or your brother comes of an age to handle it."

"What age is that?" Emil asks, more eagerly than he meant to convey.

"Well, I suppose it's not an age so much as a readiness. You and your brother both lack too much of the study you'd need to manage these lands. And since neither of you could take it, that left a dearth of magic that summoned me here. Every woods needs a wizard, as they say."

"Then you'll train us?" asked Emil. At Arthur's uneasy look, he added, "Otherwise why would you be here?"

"Maybe I want this land for myself," retorted Arthur mildly.

Leon snorted. "Oh, please. Before you realized you could kick me out of here, you'd spend every waking moment sobbing about that Francis you left behind in a fight."

"There will be _no_ mention of that frog at this table, thank you!"

"Should I go stand by the bed, then?"

" _Will you train us?_ " Emil pressed Arthur. "Leon's told me about the imbalance of magic. It sounds like you need every mage you can get."

Arthur hummed. "And with Leon's huldre magic reinfused into the forest, I suppose there'll be more magic around for all of us, won't there?" He played with the tea cozy for a moment. "Alright, I suppose I will. But you won't be living here. Come now," he said, lifting himself from his seat to grab his cloak. "It's time we find your Mathias."

* * *

The three of them approached Mathias's land only an hour or two before noon. Emil spotted him first, leading a bull and a plow over his field. He had a shock of blond hair that shone like sunlight, like every fairy tale Lukas had ever told.

"Go to him, lad," murmured Arthur. "We'll wait here."

Emil turned around to see Arthur and Leon stopped just beneath the trees, one step away from Mathias's property. Emil had already crossed the border. Leon, with Emil's basket in hand, waved him on.

When Emil turned back to look at Mathias, Mathias had spotted him and stopped.

Not knowing what possessed him, Emil took off running.

He stopped only a few steps before Mathias, who looked more and more like the knight of Lukas's stories and—increasingly—Emil's fuzzy memories with every moment. Mathias looked him up and down, his expression shifting into one of astonishment.

"… _Emil?_ "

Emil nodded. "I, uh, have a message from Lukas. He has a favor to ask." He looked back at the clearing, where Arthur had already left, leaving only Leon and the basket and Mr. Puffin. "And so do I."

 **Just FYI, huldre being able to be cured with magic is completely something I made up. The original myths had them as anti-Christian entities which in some cultures could be tamed through marriage, but that was all I could find as far as cures. Of course, trying to find out the "truth" about huldre is like asking around about Regina George - you're going to get a lot of varying and conflicting information that nonetheless makes them sound pretty badass.**

 **Next chapter to be posted this weekend at the earliest and next weekend at the latest.**


	3. Jack and the Beanstalk

**I still kept my promise! I promised last or this weekend! It's this weekend!**

 **...Let's try two for two. The last chapter will be posted by this or next weekend (or, y'know, maybe Valentine's Day, because dennor Valentine's Day ftw)**

Mathias learned very quickly that taking care of two teenage boys was much more expensive than taking care of himself.

Mathias could manage himself on three bowls of porridge a day, and Emil and Leon weren't especially picky, with the added bonus that Emil could cook more dishes than could Mathias. But Emil was growing, and Leon was growing (which was apparently some sort of surprise to Leon, due to certain curse circumstances that Mathias had only half understood), and even if they weren't growing, they were two more people than Mathias was used to feeding.

Of course, Mathias never regretted taking them in. His mother had died when he was born, and his father had died only a year before he was due to finish school. And it had seemed such a waste to stop attending school, even after he'd finished grieving his father, so he'd had to take out a loan from one Aldrich the next village over—apparently he was the new moneylender, having made a huge profit in some unknown business—to pay for his last year of school. But he'd never been much of a businessman, even if he now had the math and literacy to manage a business, so he'd survived on farming. It had been a lonely existence, one where he'd keenly felt the absence of his father.

Emil and Leon made his days better. He woke up eager to race Emil to the kitchen to make breakfast, and when he inevitably lost, he was happy to make small talk until Leon scrambled out of bed and Mathias had to stop pressing Emil for questions about his (beautiful) brother lest Leon feel left out. Then Leon tended the animals—some strange delight to him, did they not have cows where he came from?—and Emil tended the garden and the fields alongside Mathias, and now Mathias had enough time to finish even more wood carvings, and if he _happened_ to try selling at the next village over to see how Lukas was doing, so much the better, right?

In the evenings, though, Leon and Emil would go off to see Arthur or Arthur would come to see them, leaving Mathias alone to take stock of their financial situation and see that if they kept up like this for much longer, not only could he not afford school for either of the boys, they soon might not be able to afford more than seeds. One bad harvest and they'd…well, Mathias would hope that Emil's botany spells would be up to task by the time that ever happened.

No, the matter was that they simply needed more money. Mathias wasn't about to rely on his new younger brothers to provide, when _he_ should be the one providing.

It was in this less-than-great mindset that a foreigner caught him.

"Allo?" the foreigner asked. "Excuse me?"

Mathias startled out of his thoughts. He'd been sitting in the main village square on a stool he'd carved himself, trying to advertise other things he'd carved. "Right, sorry," he said. He stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. "See anything you like?"

"It is all so…charming," said the foreigner with a quick glance at his wares, "but I was actually hoping to ask you, one merchant to another, for some information." His accent wasn't one that Mathias had heard before, but "one merchant to another" sounded trustworthy enough.

"Oh? Sure, I'll try to help. I've been around the area!"

"Good, that's very good. I'm looking for a sorcerer."

"A…um." Mathias wracked his brain. He'd heard that word before, and if it was related to the one he was thinking of, he wasn't sure he wanted to respond in the affirmative. "Could you tell me what a sorcerer does?"

"Is _that_ what's been causing my trouble?" the merchant asked, his voice getting quieter by the minute. As he leaned closer to Mathias, some of his long blond hair fell out of its knot. "Perhaps you have a different word for it here. I am looking for someone who does magic."

Mathias inhaled sharply despite himself. He'd been thinking of the right word after all. "Right," he said with a nervous laugh. "Well, uh, here we call those people wizards, or witches. Or mages."

"Mages," said the foreigner, testing the word out under his breath. "Yes, well, I am looking for a specific one."

"Oh?" Mathias's voice rose an octave. If it were Lukas, if it were _Emil…_

"He has blond hair," said the foreigner, "rather short, and very thick eyebrows."

Mathias's shoulders dropped, and he snorted.

"So you know him? Arthur?"

Mathias blinked. "I, uh, guess it depends what you want with him."

"Nothing more than to talk," said the foreigner, leaning back to a more public volume. "I have not seen him for a long time, and I wish to make amends."

"I dunno, he leads a pretty private life. I don't think he'd want people handing out his location."

The foreigner raised an—admittedly well-groomed—eyebrow. "You drive a hard bargain. Alright, what do you want?"

"What do you sell?"

The foreigner blinked.

"You're a merchant, right? 'One merchant to another'?"

"Ah. Right, right," the foreigner said, and started feeling at his pockets. Mathias frowned. What exactly did this man sell?

The thought occurred to him that, for this foreigner to be looking for Arthur, let alone to know what Arthur was, he might _also_ be a—

"Aha!" said the foreigner, triumphantly pulling something out of his pocket with a closed fist. He opened it with a magnanimous gesture to reveal—

"Beans?" Mathias asked. He frowned at the foreigner. "You really don't think much of me, do you?"

"These are not _just_ beans," touted the foreigner, looking almost hurt. "They are of my own invention, of course. Grow them in your garden, and you will find what you seek!"

"What do I seek?" asked Mathias, still a little grumpy that the foreigner thought _beans_ were a decent trade for information about one of his—well, Arthur wasn't exactly a _friend_ , but he shared something like custody over Emil and Leon, so he was partway to family.

"Wealth! Fame!"

"Fame," Mathias snorted. But a small part of him did wonder if wealth and fame were enough to get Lukas to…to what? Lukas had clearly trusted him enough to send his own brother to live with him, so did it make Mathias a bad person that he wanted to be more than a trusted friend? They had been such good friends as kids, and when Lukas had stop coming to the woods, when Mathias had been faced with the possibility of a life without him—and then to see him in the rain just two years ago, in his village, downtrodden but more handsome than Mathias could ever have imagined—

"Or the means to get other things," said the foreigner, with a slow wink that made Mathias suspect the man wasn't a mage so much as a mind-reader.

"Fine," said Mathias, "one bean, and _if_ it works, then—"

"Ah ah ah," said the foreigner, closing his fist before Mathias could reach for a bean. "Three beans or it won't work, and I need the information first."

Alright, maybe he was a businessman at heart. "Fine, deal," said Mathias. He held out his hand to shake.

The foreigner transferred the beans to his other hand before shaking.

"So I don't know _exactly_ where he lives," Mathias began, and the foreigner groaned. Mathias pressed on in a hushed voice. "But I can tell you that every Friday evening he comes to the edge of the woods, the southwest end, to pick up my little brothers. He usually takes the path skirting along the southwest edge of town, so you could probably intersect him on the way. If that fails, he has a cottage about two hours' journey into the woods."

The foreigner blinked. "That was barely worth one bean, but I suppose I have to give you all three, or else I won't have held up my end of the bargain." He frowned and deposited the beans, one by one, into Mathias's open palm. "Plant them as the sun sets, and check on them in the morning. Bring a sack."

"What will I need the sack for?"

"Whatever you take."

Well _that_ sounded ominous. This plant could grow fruit, gold, jewels, or dung by that description.

The foreigner seemed to consider that explanation sufficient, because he was stepping away to leave.

"Wait," Mathias asked, taking a step away from his cart. "Who do I tell Arthur is coming for him, if he asks?"

The foreigner paused, as if considering whether to give him a false name. "Francis," he concluded. Whether that was his real name or not, Mathias couldn't say.

* * *

"You guys will never guess what I got today," said Mathias as he parked his cart of wares at their front door.

From the doorway, Leon eyed how untouched his merchandise was. "Not much?" he ventured. At now sixteen years old, he was becoming more sarcastic than he'd ever been. Beside him, fourteen-year-old Emil elbowed him to be polite.

"Not money," said Mathias. He'd been building up the idea of the beans in his mind, imagining the things that a mage friend of Arthur's might possibly do to them to make them worth as much he claimed. As a result, when he presented the beans proudly to his brothers, he wasn't expecting their faces to fall.

"…I guess there's one for each of us," Leon drawled after a moment.

"What did you trade for them?" Emil asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"Uh…"

"Was it at least something small?"

"Well…it seemed small to me."

"One of the figurines?"

"Someone asked me where Arthur was."

" _What?_ " Emil yelped.

"How do you know they were mage-friendly?" Leon asked.

"I think he was a mage. Probably. Otherwise why would he tell me these beans are worth money and fame?"

Leon and Emil looked at each other. Mathias got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"I'm not _stupid,_ " he said defensively. "I'm pretty sure he was a mage! Or he said he wanted to make amends with Arthur, so isn't he at least an old friend?"

"Well I really hope so," said Emil, "because if something bad happens to him, there goes my only teacher."

"Is this about how I can't send you to school?" Mathias asked. Emil's tone hurt him more than he liked to admit. "Because you know I'm working on it, that's why I'm always in town trying to sell—"

"No, it's not about that," said Emil, but the weakness of his reply makes Mathias doubt him. "It's about how you just don't— _understand_ how important being a mage is to me! It's one of the only things that connects me to Lukas, now that I know Aldrich is looking for me and I can't go visit him. And now you want to endanger the only other mage I know?"

"And what if I didn't?" Mathias retorted. "What if this really was Arthur's friend and he's safe to tell, and what if these are really magic beans? The mage promised me riches from these, you know." He gave the beans a rattle. "Maybe riches will help us save Lukas if magic can't."

"Who says magic can't?"

"Whoa, whoa," interrupted Leon. "When did we ever talk about saving Lukas?"

Mathias and Emil looked at each other. The idea had been so deeply ingrained in their minds, but neither of them had vocalized it before. Mathias for fear that he would seem too invested in a man he'd seen only once since childhood, and Emil—both of them, most likely—for fear that whatever scheme they concocted to get Lukas out of Aldrich's hands wouldn't be enough.

When neither of them spoke, Leon faked a yawn. "Right, well, I'm tired. Maybe we can talk about this in the morning."

"I'm going to plant the beans first," said Mathias.

"Is that smart?" asked Emil, crossing his arms.

"If I'm right, we have a chance at at least having _enough_ ," said Mathias, already strutting to a clear patch in the garden. Then, more quietly: "If I'm wrong…they're just beans."

He stepped gingerly over vines and leaves until he found a spot that Emil hadn't yet charmed for growth. Mathias wanted to know if these really were magic beans, if that foreigner really was a mage.

He made a cup-sized hole in the ground, dropped the beans in, and covered them in dirt with both hands. Should he water them? The foreigner hadn't said anything about watering them. He'd barely said anything about planting them.

Mathias stood up and wiped his hands on his trousers, feeling like he should say a prayer or a spell or something. Ultimately, the only word he could think of was: "Please."

He turned to go back inside.

* * *

Mathias woke the next day feeling as if he'd slept for a week—not in the well-rested way, but in the way when he'd drank too much wine and had a headache and bleary vision to show for it.

He didn't quite feel like racing Emil to the kitchen again, but lying in bed and feeling sorry for himself would only make things worse for him in the long run, so he stumbled out of bed, ignored the brief bout of vertigo, and stumbled to the kitchen.

Emil was leaning out of the open kitchen window.

"Thought you didn't wanna let flies in here?" Mathias asked, rubbing his eyes.

Emil didn't respond.

It would take just as much jostling for Mathias to push his head out beside Emil's as it would for him to go outside and stare for himself, so he did just that. He forgot to put on his shoes, and stepped extra carefully through the garden and around the side of the house to see—

A wall of green, as wide and thick as a silo.

The beanstalk absolutely ruined the tiny fence surrounding the garden, and pushed into the plough fields and even the house. It was vast and almost impossible to take in without taking a few steps back, which Mathias did as he craned his neck up to the sky.

He couldn't see where the vine stopped.

Emil turned his neck to face Mathias. "What did you _do?_ "

Mathias's face slowly lit up. "I think I made us rich."

* * *

They pulled Leon out of bed and ate breakfast outside, barely noticing the flavor of the cheese in their bread or the coarseness of the dirt in the field as they stared at the girth of the beanstalk.

"So it's magic, then," said Leon, almost belatedly.

"The beans were," said Emil. "I don't know if the stalk is."

"Well you're the moss guy," said Leon, citing an inside joke that Mathias didn't get. "Go up and talk to it or something."

"You know I can do other magic now, right?"

"Even _Mathias_ can do magic now, you know."

"Must be hard, being the only normal one after all this time."

"A couple centuries was enough for me, thanks."

"Can we just focus," said Mathias, "on the fact that I was right?"

"I'm still not sure this was worth giving information about Arthur," said Emil, but he was less angry about it than last night. "And we still have to know what's up there."

"The foreigner—Francis, he said his name was Francis—"

Leon snorted.

"What?" Mathias asked.

"You told _Francis_ where Arthur is?"

"…Yeah? Is that good or bad?"

"A bit of both. They'll be busy for a while, I think."

"…Right…" said Mathias. "Well, anyway, Francis said to bring a sack for 'whatever I take'. But I don't see fruit or anything."

"Maybe you have to take the leaves?" Emil asked, taking a bite of bread and cheese. "They could have pretty good healing properties."

"Which would mean Lukas wouldn't have to work anymore…"

"I think the more important question," said Leon, "is how you're supposed to fit those leaves into a sack."

"Maybe he meant a potato sack?" asked Mathias. "One of the really big ones."

"At that point is it even a sack, though, or just a blanket?"

"You can't hold things in a blanket like you can in a sack."

"With leaves that size? A blanket would definitely be better."

"Guys?" Emil said cautiously.

"But you'd have to fold the corners over, and wouldn't that be as bad for the leaf as cramming it in a—"

" _Guys_ ," Emil pressed, and pointed Mathias and Leon to the fence surrounding their land.

Villagers had arrived.

"This has mage work _all_ over it," murmured Emil.

"Get inside," Mathias said. A cold dose of reality had washed over him, and now his first instinct was protection. "Leon, you're with me."

Emil quickly scooped up the rest of their breakfast and walked as calmly as he could back inside, while Mathias and Leon sauntered to the villagers. One of Mathias's school friends, Lars, was the first to greet him.

"That's quite a crop, Mathias," said Lars with an abnormally skeptical expression.

"Yeah, can you believe it? I got these beans from a total stranger, and—"

"A wizard?" asked Lars.

"I mean, I'm not sure. But he said they were good beans, so I thought—"

"There aren't any wizards in our village," said Lars a little too evenly. "And I haven't heard of any passing through. Have you?"

"Like I said," said Mathias, his smile straining, "I got the beans from a stranger."

Lars and the other onlookers examined him and Leon. "Make sure that's something we don't have to worry about," said Lars finally. "The next village over has a wizard."

"And they're doing fine, aren't they?" said Leon from over Mathias's shoulder. Mathias frowned at him.

Lars looked at Leon. "I haven't seen you around before."

"Distant cousin," Leon said breezily. "Mathias wrote saying he needed help with the farm."

Lars examined Leon and then turned to Mathias, with a flickered glance at the beanstalk that dominated the skyline. "Look into that," he repeated, "and let us know." He left, although many of the other townspeople lingered to gawk or glare.

Mathias nodded and quickly escorted Leon back to the house, where Emil was waiting inside.

"I think I'm going to have to climb it," said Mathias without preamble.

"Are you sure?" asked Emil. "It's kind of…high."

"Maybe so, but if I don't do it and live to tell the tale, we're going to get more onlookers than we want here." Mathias paused. "And maybe intruders."

"Still sure these beans were a good idea?" Emil asked.

Mathias turned to the back of the door, where his empty seed sack lay hanging. He draped it over his shoulder. "I can only think of one way to find out."

* * *

The climb was hard.

Mathias had assumed it would be, given that it was an enormous beanstalk and climbing was not part of his daily exercise regimen, but beyond his aching arms, he grew more mentally tired with every foot of height he gained.

"I wish I'd finished breakfast," he grumbled, although food was really the least of his worries. At least, if he were brave enough to eat what he assumed were enormous versions of the magic beans, which he encountered as he climbed. Mathias was not that brave.

No, the real worry was falling. Vines were slippery things, although coarser when they were enlarged, and Mathias had to be aware of his grip and his footing at all times. After only a few minutes, he'd had to train himself not to look down. Only up, where a suspiciously thick layer of clouds blocked his view.

Mathias half wondered as he climbed if the villagers had been right, more so than the mages, and beyond the sky was really heaven. Maybe when the most powerful of the mages controlled the weather, they really only controlled the underside of God's floor.

Mathias had to entertain himself somehow.

The sun had nearly disappeared behind the layer of clouds up ahead when Mathias, aching and panting, finally reached the point where he could see no further above. When he looked forward he saw only the beanstalk, and when he looked around that, he saw horizon. The forest ended after a point, it appeared. He'd always thought it went on forever. He wondered which village was Lukas's.

Then he realized just how far he was seeing, and therefore how high he was, and had to take several puffing breaths before he pushed himself through the layer of clouds.

The clouds became thicker, thicker still, and discolored as he wiggled his body through them, until finally he emerged in—

Dirt.

The beanstalk ended in a tiny beansprout, in an enormous field of dirt, nearly exactly like the one he'd left at home. Except that now, compared to his surroundings, Mathias was the height of his boots on his feet—that is to say, much smaller than normal.

"Oh COME ON!" he shouted.

He silenced himself when he saw the house. It seemed as big as a mountain, although if it had been back home it would barely have been larger than Mathias's one-floor home. It looked nicely kept, which suggested…

Someone lived there?

Sure enough, when Mathias looked around, he saw shoeprints in the dirt. Most likely recent ones.

Subconsciously, he reached for the sack Francis had told him to bring. Where was the money supposed to come from? The dirt? The giant crops underground?

Was he supposed to become a burglar?

Well, best to find out. Mathias pulled himself away from the beansprout, patting it almost sentimentally. He righted himself and brushed the dirt off his clothes, and started walking in the direction of the farmhouse. His arms and shoulders throbbed in gratitude for the break, though Mathias knew there would most likely be more climbing ahead. He already dreaded it, but at least he wouldn't get vertigo this time. Hopefully.

After what felt like a mile but was no doubt less, Mathias arrived at the porch and hoisted himself up a step half his height. He wished he'd thought to bring some rope, and made a mental note to tell Francis if he ever saw him again. Mages probably didn't have to think of that sort of thing—they could probably levitate or something. God help him if Emil ever figured that one out, he thought with a wry chuckle to keep his spirits up.

Mathias sized up the front door. He supposed any knocking he tried would be too quiet for the inhabitants. He hoped they were generous, for all that Francis had promised.

At home, he always left the door unlocked. He pressed the door experimentally.

Unlocked.

Mathias slipped inside and closed the door behind him, and nearly stumbled at the whoosh of air from that simple action. Getting around was going to be tough. He looked around the entry area and saw two pairs of boots—so at least one person lived here, and maybe two or three. The entry opened into a sitting room with a plush-looking sofa, and a chair with a—

"What are you doing here?"

Mathias jumped.

The white lump on the chair shook itself and sat up, and revealed itself to be a chicken. The chicken extended its neck and perked its head.

"What is it? Is it the blond one again?" asked a different voice.

"It's _a_ blond one," said…the chicken. Mathias thought it was the chicken. It was certainly opening its mouth like it was talking. But it sounded like a young boy, not the squawking lady tones he'd always imagined of a chicken. He couldn't see the origin of the other voice.

"Turn me around—let me see!" said the other voice.

With a flurry of feathers, the chicken leaped to the coffee table—easily twice as tall as Mathias, though he could see what stood on it because he stood so far away from it—and used its beak to roughly nudge a handheld harp in a half circle, until Mathias could see the statue of a young boy built into the harp's handle. The boy's face had a scar across it, which Mathias focused on until the face scowled at him.

"Well you're not _the_ blond, I suppose," the harp snapped.

"I'm…sorry?" Mathias wasn't sure whether an apology was even being asked for.

"If you were the blond, I'd want a rematch. Look what he did to my _face!_ " The harp-boy lifted one hand from his crossed chest to point at the scar across his nose and cheek.

"Oh, shush, Mama Tino said it makes you look cool," said the chicken, and now Mathias was _sure_ that the chicken was talking. In another ruffle of feathers, the chicken tossed itself to the ground and approached Mathias. It was only just taller than Mathias, maybe his height and a half, but Mathias had never been so afraid of a chicken in his life.

"You didn't come with a weapon, did you?" the chicken asked. He sounded almost eager to hear a "yes". "The other blond did. That's how Erik got the scar."

"I…uh, didn't think I would need one," said Mathias as he finally found his voice. "I honestly came up here not knowing what to expect."

"It's a _house_ ," snorted the harp—Erik, most likely. "What is there to expect?"

"Well I wasn't expecting a house," Mathias snarked back.

"What did the blond man tell you?" asked the chicken, turning its head to one side in a way that Mathias might have called "cocking" if he were cheeky enough to go through with it.

"He just told me I'd find…er, wealth and fame."

"Wealth and fame," Erik scoffed.

"It sounded better when he said it."

"Well, the blond man did take an awful lot of gold coins, if that's what you mean," said the chicken.

"…Excuse me?"

"Gold coins," said Erik with a scoff, "Peter, he doesn't know what _gold coins_ are, are they even worth giving to him?"

"Giving?" Mathias's pitch was raising by the second.

"That's what the blond man took," the chicken—Peter—explained. "They're not worth much to us here, just enough to afford cheese and jam and bread for Mama Tino and Papa Berwald, but the blond man said they're worth a lot where he's from." He tilted his head in the other direction. "Wanna see?"

"Could I?" Mathias was working very hard to keep his heart rate under control. This was what Francis meant by wealth and fame—he meant as much money as Mathias could carry, in the form of the largest coins he'd ever seen.

With one enormous leap that ruffled Mathias's hair more than it ever had been, Peter leaped onto a table to Mathias's right that Mathias hadn't noticed before, in what appeared to be a small kitchen. With his beak, Peter nudged open the metal top of a tin and emerged with a single coin, which he placed gently on its side and balanced under one scraggly foot, like a ball. Mathias could see the glint of gold from his spot on the ground.

"The blond man took one on his first visit, and then two on the second," said Peter.

"And the third visit he got nothing, because he scarred me and Papa Berwald heard," said Erik in such a fierce voice that Mathias understands it's meant to be a warning.

"Papa doesn't like us to dig into the savings, but Mama thinks it's a small expense," said Peter. "So how many do you want?"

"I can…" Mathias stammered. "I can just _have_ some?"

"I mean, as long as you don't take anything else of ours."

Mathias turned toward Erik. He might have been pushing his luck, but he _had_ to know if there's a catch. "Why did Fran—the blond man scar you?"

Erik and Peter shared a look.

"We'll give you two coins to take back the question," said Erik.

"Fine by me."

Peter kicked the first coin, the one he'd been displaying, off the table. It landed and rolled towards Mathias with a thundering noise.

Wait, he realized when the coin collapsed a few feet away from him. The thundering noise hadn't come from the coin.

Down a distant hallway that connected to the kitchen, Mathias heard footsteps. Peter looked over his shoulder—wing?—and immediately retracted his neck into his chest in a show of guilt. Mathias half thought to hide, but before he could find a good spot, the largest human Mathias had ever seen stepped into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and blinking unimpressedly down at Peter.

"Sorry, Mama," said Peter bashfully. He hopped down from the table and fluttered to join the harp in the sitting area.

"Mama" scanned the floor until he spotted Mathias. Mathias stood frozen in his place. If he were anything less than scared for his life, he might have wondered if he should bow in the presence of such an enormous, threatening creature.

"Mama's" face broke into a soft smile. He sighed. "I suppose Francis has sent one of his friends, huh?" he said, not unkindly but at such a volume that Mathias still winced.

"I didn't realize I would be intruding," Mathias said, and when "Mama" held a hand up to his ear to signify he couldn't hear Mathias's tiny voice, Mathias had to shout: "He didn't tell me what I would find up here."

"Yes, that does sound like Francis," said "Mama" in a quieter voice. "Always about the dramatic flair." He took the few steps necessary before he kneeled down before Mathias. "I suppose introductions are in order," he said in his softest voice yet, at a volume that only barely hurt Mathias's ears. "I'm Tino." "Mama" Tino extended a finger. "What's your name?"

Mathias realized after a second that he ought to shake the finger. His hand only barely fit around Tino's fingertip. "I'm Mathias," he said, reminding himself to be loud, "and I'm sorry for intruding."

"It's fine," said Tino in a calm but quietly displeased way that said it was not fine, but he wasn't going to push it. "I know that you people Below have it rough, although, again, Francis and his dramatic flair."

"He said people were starving," piped up Peter from beside Erik. "Is that true?"

"For some people," said Mathias. "It's gotten better now."

"And what are you planning to do with this money?" asked Tino, looking genuinely curious to hear the answer. "Francis never mentioned his own plans."

"He didn't to me, either," said Mathias sincerely. "The more I think about it, the more I think he used it to travel. He was looking for someone, you know."

"How sweet," said Tino. "And you?"

Mathias felt rude to think about it right there, but he had to. Of course, he had his immediate concerns: feed Emil and Leon, pay for their education, maybe improve his business, and definitely pay off his debts to Aldrich. But even a fraction of one of these coins would do all that and more.

"After the necessities," Mathias said, "I have a friend. He was probably my best friend growing up, but he's…in a tough spot. His stepfather is using him to make money, and I know he just wants to be with his brother. I think maybe I can…buy him off? And let him come home."

"Let me guess," Erik drawled from the coffee table, "it sounded better when someone else said it."

"Just because you're happy with your music, young man, doesn't mean other people have everything they want," scolded Tino. He turned to Mathias with a smile. "Well, that sounds like a worthy investment to me. Do you think three should do it?"

"Coins?" Mathias squawked.

"I could probably manage four," said Tino, "but my husband might notice. He's trying to save up for a new chair."

"He could just _build_ me a chair," huffed Erik.

"Oh, you know how he likes furniture shopping," said Tino absentmindedly as he rifled through the coin tin, "but I think we can make a—"

He suddenly paused. Mathias turned to Erik and Peter to find them frozen too, listening.

After a few seconds, Mathias heard it too: silence, and then the unmistakable sound of sheets being rustled in another room.

Tino's eyes widened. "I think he woke up from his nap," he whispered. "Erik, play something?"

The strings of Erik's harp began plucking, as if by an invisible hand. Erik himself was still staring almost anxiously at the gap leading into the hallway.

"That sack of yours won't be nearly big enough," said Tino, "but all I have is a napkin…" He picked up a square napkin as large as a tarp and wrapped three coins in it, tying the corners of the napkin together before coming over to Mathias and delicately situating the knot's holes through his arms and the knot against his test. It was far from comfortable, but the coins would have broken the sides of Mathias's seed bag.

"It's not perfect," said Tino, "but it'll do. And please, next time, could you tell Francis to give his beans to _another_ town? I know there are so many of your villages under our land, but all of the beansprouts arrive here, and—"

"And tell him not to even _think_ of taking Peter's golden eggs again!" Erik shouted. Peter immediately hushed him, eying the hallway frantically.

"T'no? Erik?"

"Go!" Tino hissed, opening the door and pushing Mathias outside to the point where he landed on his knees on the porch. Out of the corner of his eye, Mathias could see Peter's feathers flutter to the window, and he resolved to run. Peter staring out the window was a dead giveaway to this Berwald that Mathias was outside, but unless he wanted to burrow himself into the immediate dirt, he had no choice but to run to the beanstalk.

As he ran, the coins jangled against his back and the napkin knot pressing against his chest. He could hear a deeper voice than any he'd heard before, getting closer and closer despite how fast Mathias was running.

He was halfway to the green tip of the beansprout when he heard the door swing open, and a discontent growl echoed across the land.

Despite his best judgment, Mathias turned around to see a man that would have been tall even by the standards of his own village, dressed almost comically in dark blue pajamas and a green nightcap. He was either glowering or squinting, and Mathias didn't care to come close enough to find out. He sprinted faster across the lumps of the field, wishing desperately that the napkin Tino had given him hadn't been white and therefore marked him so clearly in the brown soil.

Thundering footsteps resounded behind him. He was three quarters of the way to the beansprout, but Berwald was coming.

Mathias reached the beansprout and nearly tripped over it in his effort to find the small hole he'd left when he arrived. Praying the napkin knot would hold, he pressed himself against the beansprout and began to kick his way through the dirt.

Just as Berwald landed on his knees beside the beansprout.

Mathias looked up to a horrifying sight: enormous sea green eyes trained on him in a deadly squint, and giant fingers reaching to pluck him out.

"BERWALD!" Tino shouted across the field. "You get back here!"

Berwald gave another growl—more of a huff this time, not that Mathias was paying attention to anything other than his hold on the stalk. Slowly, miraculously, as Mathias scrambled into the dirt, he could see Berwald rise.

The last thing he heard of the giant world was a rumbling voice saying:

"Tell yer kind to _stop."_

* * *

Mathias's feet popped through the clouds, and immediately he clung to the beanstalk and tried not to look down.

It had been so much easier when he was going up. Slipperiness had been an obstacle, but not a downright danger. And now that the dirt of the giant world wasn't keeping him pressed against the beanstalk, it was up to his arms—his poor, tired arms, now supporting even more weight after having had only twenty minutes of rest—to guide him without rest or else face a fatal fall.

But if he could get down, Mathias would have all he needed for the rest of his life. A _better_ life. He could buy businesses, villages, _land_ —

He could make a better life for his brothers.

He just had to climb, and hold on for dear life.

* * *

He must have become sentimental, because somewhere between his various breaks and checks of the napkin knot, he slipped one of the enormous beans into his empty seed sack. It made climbing difficult, especially for the knee whose reach was obstructed by the new load, but it was nice to have some proof that he had indeed made it up and back down a beanstalk unlike any other.

He wondered if God lived somewhere above the giants. He wondered if tinier people than him lived below his soil. He wondered what Lukas would have to say about today's adventure.

When he gathered the courage to look down for the fourth time since he broke through the soil, he could make out people on the ground.

The two figures closest to the stalk, fair-haired and dark-haired, were most likely Emil and Leon. He wished Emil weren't out, because the smattering of villagers at the edge of his property, on the other side of the beanstalk from his perspective, had grown into a crowd. But he could buy Emil's safety, probably, possibly. He hoped.

He realized that Tino's white napkin served to signal his arrival, so he made sure to keep his back to Emil and Leon so they could watch his progress.

When he finally made it to the ground, soaked in sweat and arms trembling, Emil and Leon caught him in tandem. The beanstalk blocked the villagers' view of them.

"Well? What was it like?" Leon asked. "Everyone's been asking me, and I had to tell them you weren't back yet."

Emil just looked at Mathias, his expression unreadable.

Keeping his eyes trained on Emil, Mathias untied the knot on his chest and let the napkin full of coins fall to the ground with a loud "ching".

Half of Emil's lips quirked up.

"Take it in, and make sure they don't see it," Mathias instructed hoarsely and dropped his seed sack and the enormous seed to the ground. Emil immediately lifted the coins—easily as large as his chest—as quietly as he could, while Leon lifted the seed sack from Mathias's shoulder and folded the napkin.

"Blanket-sized," said Leon. "What'd I tell you?"

Mathias smiled wearily. He still had to distract the audience on the other side of the beanstalk.

He rounded the beanstalk, trusting Emil and Leon to figure something out, and approached the crowd, whose murmuring was audible even from a distance. Mathias felt tired and sweaty, not much like a hero. He probably looked worse for wear, too.

Time to play that to his advantage.

"It's dangerous up there," said Mathias in as loud a voice as he could manage. "Enormous giants. Bloodthirsty. They want to eat us!"

The crowd gasped as if on cue.

"I only barely escaped," said Mathias tiredly, "but I can't guarantee they won't come after me once they find I'm gone. Please," he said with an exhausted wheeze, "we have to cut it down."

The villagers murmured with each other. A few weren't convinced. "What did the giants have?" one asked. His eyes gleamed with hope for riches.

Mathias looked at them levelly. "A chicken twice my height with a beak as sharp as a sword. And a human trapped in a harp by a wizard."

Mathias had no idea if it was true, but the word "wizard" did it. Within half an hour, the entire village had arrived with their axes.

* * *

The fallen beanstalk bisected the forest. Mathias felt horrible about it, and he hoped Arthur's house—well, everyone's house—was okay, but he'd done what he could to protect Tino and Berwald and their odd family.

And, frankly, to protect his own loot.

"So…what are we going to do with these?" asked Emil. He'd hidden one under each of their mattresses, and now they had assembled them in one bedroom (shutters closed, of course) to examine the foreign faces carved into the gold. The enormous bean sat beside the coins.

"We'll need to find Francis," said Mathias. "He'll probably have an idea of how to sell them."

"And after that?" asked Leon. "When we're rich?"

Emil and Mathias shared a look, and then both turned to Leon.

"I'm pretty sure," said Emil, "there are some changes that need to be made."


	4. Cinderella

**A few of you made some amazing guesses as to what would happen, or mentioned things you were looking forward to. Sorry to say, I didn't always deliver. Here's hoping that this chapter satisfies you regardless.**

 **Happy Valentine's Day to all, and as always, thank you so much for sticking around and reading (and commenting on) these random fics I write.**

"What do you mean I have to get _married?_ " Mathias demanded.

"Francis didn't have to get married," Leon pointed out. He glanced at the man in overly flamboyant gold clothing, who was looking out the window at the garden that was now Mathias's.

"Francis didn't go around buying titles for himself the moment he came into giants' money," said Arthur sharply.

"Not that I would have minded the spouse with a title, _cher._ " Francis gave a quick wink to Arthur, who flushed. Mathias was slowly beginning to understand what Leon had meant by "they'll be busy for a while" when they finally reunited.

"So how about we back up and you tell me _why_ I have to marry?" Mathias interrupted. For emphasis, he put his hands on his new writing desk. He raised his eyebrows at Arthur and Leon sat before him on separate chairs, and glanced at Francis near the window. He already felt out of place in this study, but it was _his_ now, bought with the lordship.

"Well, that's how it goes in the nobility of this country," said Arthur. "If you're a lord, you need a lady. One manages the accounts, the other the house and maybe a few charity projects."

"A…lady." Mathias was blanching already. There was only one person he could even consider marrying, and that person would never pass as a woman. No matter how beautiful he was, no matter how sweet his voice.

Not to mention that, as always, he was jumping the gun when it came to Lukas. When he was younger, he'd assumed they'd be friends until they died. Then, when Lukas had told him—reluctantly, meekly—that he was a wizard, Mathias had decided they'd be friends even after death, due to some magic he was sure Lukas would arrange. But in the end he hadn't even been able to promise they'd see each other in the forest, let alone in school, and now Lukas's younger brother had been Mathias's for _four years_ and Lukas was still indentured, and Mathias wouldn't fault him if Lukas took one look around his town as a free man and decided to leave.

And Mathias would let him, but that didn't stop him from hoping that Lukas might reconsider once he saw that Mathias…

What? Loved him? Could he even say that, having only glimpsed him a few times since they first re-met as adults?

But at the thought of marrying someone, his heart only gave one name.

Arthur was looking at Mathias strangely. "I don't suppose you have someone in mind."

"Probably Emil's brother," said Leon, examining his nails.

"What—how did you—?" Mathias gaped.

Leon glanced up, and mimicked a too-deep voice that was supposed to be Mathias's. "'So, uh, Emil, did your brother have a lot of friends? Like, in town? Emil, what did he do in his free time? Does he still like the woods? What about books?'"

Mathias glared. Leon was now eighteen years old in human years, and he didn't seem to want anyone to forget that by experience, he was the oldest person in the room.

" _Well,_ " said Arthur before Mathias could retort, "I certainly don't see any problem on the mage side of things, as we've always been a people with more…" His eyes flickered to Francis. " _Varied_ tastes. But on the non-mage side, I believe you'll face some challenges."

"Like?" asked Mathias.

"Well, for one thing, he's a man."

"What about Lord Braginsky in the next province over? He just recently married his former servant, Alfred. I mean yeah, it was a scandal, but no one revolted."

"Hm, maybe so. But Alfred isn't a mage."

"So?"

" _So,_ can you imagine the backlash if you married one?"

Mathias thought of how willing his home village was to chop down the beanstalk once he'd hinted that a wizard might harm them from above. He could only imagine how they would handle a wizard nobleman, even one in the role of "lady" instead of "lord".

"No, we need to be as impartial about this as possible," said Arthur, already furrowing his brows in scheming. "Maybe a random selection, or a contest…"

"Or a 'chance encounter' that turns out to be fated," Francis jutted in. "Who says that Mathias cannot be with the one he loves?"

"I mean," said Mathias, rubbing the back of his neck, "I'm not sure _love_ is the word I would use—"

"Interest, then, or romance!" Francis seemed downright eager at the thought of it. He turned to Arthur, suddenly matter-of-fact. "We need a ball."

"We don't need a bloody _ball_ , we need a solution!"

"The ball _is_ the solution, _mon chou!_ "

"Don't call me a cabbage, frog."

"Don't turn me into a frog again, then, cabbage!"

"What is this ball solving?"

The four men in the room turned to find Emil walking through the doorway. At sixteen years old he was resembling his brother more every day, although every time Mathias would try to mention something, Emil would mutter something about how he was mistaken. Emil knew Mathias thought Lukas was handsome, and seemed not to share the same opinion of himself. But, through Arthur's and now Francis's tutelage, he was growing into his own as a surprisingly powerful wizard. Mathias made sure to comment on his skills too, though of his immediate circle of friends and family, he was the person who least understood Emil's magic.

Emil looked between the four of them, and then seemed to settle on Leon for the most complete explanation.

"Mathias needs to marry," said Leon in his nearly trademark evenness, "and he clearly wants to marry Lukas, but Lukas is a mage and Mathias doesn't want to say he's in love with someone he's barely talked to since they were kids."

Emil snorted. "And the ball?"

"Francis?" Leon turned to Francis, who had steadily stepped closer to Arthur in his argument and looked halfway to either hitting or kissing him.

"Right." Francis straightened his clothing and looked around Mathias's new study, as if reminding himself that he was in a noble setting. "We must make this ball the most magnificent one in living memory. A full orchestra, gold décor, and of course foods from my home—"

" _Because?_ " intoned Arthur.

" _Because_ we will be promoting the name and power of our new Lord Mathias Kohler, and hosting every eligible lad and maiden in the land for the honor of becoming his lady."

The others stared at Francis in silence.

"That's _ridiculous_ ," Leon said.

"That's quite possibly the most expensive way we could do this," said Arthur.

"But it could work."

"See? At least _one_ mage believes in me," Francis said, gesturing to Emil in gratitude.

"You think so?" Mathias swiveled to look at Emil. He'd been too cautious to hope such a flamboyant plan could work, but if Emil, a mage and Lukas's brother, thought they had a chance to…

 _Save Lukas_ , was probably Emil's priority, and it was Mathias's too. But _marry Lukas_ may not have been a bad addition.

"I think so," said Emil, and he looked at Mathias levelly. "But the plan needs a few extra steps."

* * *

Lukas was twenty-three years old and quickly losing hope.

All correspondence went through Aldrich, so if Mathias had sent any word that Emil was safe, if not living with him, Lukas had no way of hearing about it without letting Aldrich know too. Ever since Aldrich had realized that Emil was gone for good, he'd roped one of his own sons into accompanying Lukas to town each day. The only time Lukas was unsupervised was when he was in the potions shack.

The only saving grace Lukas had was that Aldrich still didn't know Emil was a mage. If he'd known that, his casual search for a lost son would have turned into a manhunt. And he had power on his side. Aldrich was becoming busier, having more meetings, and more carefully counting the money Lukas brought in. Lukas suspected a growing side business that he frankly wanted no part in.

He'd seen Mathias only three times in the four years since he'd sent Emil to him. The first time, only a few weeks after Emil had left, Lukas had been with Ludwig, so he could afford a full minute of distraction as Mathias stood at his carver's stall and made desperate eye contact. He mouthed things, but Lukas couldn't make them out. He only surmised that Emil was well and Mathias was concerned, and that was all he needed to know, so he turned away before Ludwig could notice who had drawn his attention.

The second time, Lukas had been accompanied by Gilbert, who was loudly chatting with a friend of his in town while Lukas stood waiting a respectable distance behind him. Lukas was the first to see Mathias, setting up his cart with a thinness and a weariness that mismatched Lukas's memories of him.

Lukas knew that stance, that hunger. Mathias was giving his food to Emil, just as Lukas had done before him.

Something clenched his heart, something warm and yet painful. The ache of love he already recognized and nursed when it arrived, but this new feeling was shame. Lukas had placed a burden on one of the only people in his life who didn't deserve it.

When Gilbert ended his conversation and summoned him along before Mathias could look up, Lukas was almost glad.

The third time, a year and some months after Emil's disappearance, Mathias whistled to get Lukas's attention.

He was with Gilbert again, but Gilbert was trying to flirt up the flower peddler and had no intention of stopping for a mere whistle, so Lukas was the one to look up. Mathias still looked tired and hungry, but with a happiness about him that he hadn't had that day in the rain. He only looked at Lukas and smiled.

 _Emil is okay,_ Lukas hoped he meant to say. _Going to school like you wanted._ _He's happy._

Of course, there were other things he wanted. For Emil to learn about his wizard background, more than Lukas had. For Emil to be loved. And secretly, in that quiet part of him that was shaped like Emil's old space on the bed, Lukas wanted most of all to be there with them—with Emil and Mathias, doing every chore he'd done for Aldrich but now for _himself_ and for the people he loved.

With those dreams in mind, unguarded for just a second, Lukas had smiled back.

Then Mathias stopped coming to the village.

It began around the time the beanstalk in the sky popped up near Mathias's village. Lukas could see it in the horizon if he went to the far end of his family's land and peered over the trees. The beanstalk disappeared into a layer of clouds that never disappeared, no matter how sunny the day became.

But as quickly as it appeared, the beanstalk was gone, leaving a sight in the morning that most people had forgotten by sundown. If it weren't for the tremor of the beanstalk's collapse that rattled Lukas's potion bottles, he might have thought he'd dreamt the beanstalk too.

He didn't think to worry about Mathias or Emil until Mathias stopped coming to the village market. But as weeks turned to months and the wood carver from the neighboring village never came, Lukas's concern turned to worry, and worry to dread.

How many houses had been crushed when that beanstalk fell?

He became desperate enough to ask Ludwig, who—of the three men in the house—seemed to distrust him least.

"The beanstalk mostly landed in the forest," Ludwig said, disgruntled to be interrupted from the book he was studying from. He took another bite from his lunch as Lukas scrubbed dishes at the sink. "I'd imagine anyone who lived there might have been in danger."

Lukas dropped the dish he'd been cleaning.

A year after the beanstalk's fall, Lukas still hadn't seen Mathias. He dared to ask around about the woodcarver whenever one of his "brothers" wasn't listening, but no one in the village seemed to remember his name or even what he looked like, he'd come so infrequently. And only the politest had thought to ask how Emil was doing.

Lukas didn't know anymore.

He refused to think they were dead. As stunted as his magic had become, as much of it as he poured into potions, he swore he would have felt some sort of immense pain if his brother had died. He'd felt it when Mother passed, after all, he and Emil both. But whether Emil was alive or not said nothing about Mathias, and now he had no way to find out about either of them.

At this point, he was carrying on with his life for lack of other options.

Things changed, distantly. A new lord came into ownership of the province, some boy who'd come into money. One of the new lord's first policies was a hefty tax on moneylenders, and Aldrich now spent more time at cafes with other older businessmen, muttering and wondering what else the young lord might do that would ruin their savings. As a result, Aldrich became considerably less scrupulous of what money Lukas brought in.

Lukas started saving the smallest coins first. He hid them in the same chest where he kept the pictures Emil had drawn him as a child and the one portrait he had of his mother. He'd set Emil free four years ago; now, with the chance to finally earn some money for himself, it was his turn.

Hypothetically, it was simple. Walk the same forest path Emil had, approach Mathias's house (or what was left of it), and trace whatever path he found there to find Emil (and maybe Mathias, he desperately hoped for Mathias) and take his younger brother and flee. Aldrich would pursue him, so he'd need a spurt of distance, and to travel that far required money.

And a distraction.

Two years after the beanstalk had fallen, four years after Emil had left, it was Ludwig's turn to take Lukas to sell potions. But Gilbert was bored and tagged along, and so all three men were present to hear the messenger approach the town square. He was a lean young man, a foreigner most likely, with dark hair and eyes and thick eyebrows. He wore a fine waistcoat in red, the color of the new young lord.

"Hear ye, hear ye." The young man seemed unimpressed with his own words, but as he unrolled a parchment to read from, it became clear to Lukas that he had a script to follow. "Let it be known," he read, "that our gracious Lord Kohler invites and welcomes _all_ in this village to his Noble Ball, on the night of the next full moon, at his lordship's castle. He especially extends an invitation to all the eligible youths of the land, noble or common, in the hope that on that night, he may find his lady."

A smattering of feminine gasps resounded throughout the crowd. Beside Lukas, Gilbert snorted but maintained interest.

"Our gracious Lord Kohler hopes to come to know his subjects, and bids you come." Having reached the end of his script, the young man ceremoniously rolled up his parchment and stepped down from the makeshift platform to his waiting horse. From across the crowd, Lukas nearly swore that the young man made eye contact with him, as if to say, _you too._

"Must not be much of a looker, if he has to ask every maiden in the kingdom to attend," Gilbert scoffed to Ludwig. "He'll probably just take the first one who'll take him too."

"From the sounds of those gasps, Gilbert, most of these women don't care about looks over title," said Ludwig. He eyed the crowd. "And I suspect that goes for your flower girl, too."

Gilbert and Lukas followed his gaze. Sure enough, the flower peddler, Elizabeta, was giggling with some of her friends and, from the looks of their gestures, talking about gowns they might wear.

Gilbert frowned. "Well. I suppose it wouldn't be such a bad thing to see what all the fuss is about."

"I think I'll ask the new lord to set up a university in this town," said Ludwig.

Gilbert eyed his brother.

"What? The announcement said he hopes to 'come to know' his subjects. He should know what citizens like me want, or else he's failed at his duty."

"Lud, I think you're the _only_ citizen who wants that."

Lukas, meanwhile, was making calculations in his head. The full moon was only two weeks away, hardly enough time for him to save the money he'd need to whisk himself and Emil away from this place. His plans were further damaged when Gilbert and Ludwig told Aldrich of the ball.

"You'll need coats," said Aldrich. "Fine coats and britches, and a visit to the barber."

"And a carriage," Ludwig added. "The lord's castle is an hour's journey from here by horse."

"This is why I invested so much into our savings, for these tough times," said Aldrich with a sigh. He disappeared into his study and reappeared with several gold coins. "Gilbert, run to the tailor and tell him to start work on three sets of clothing fit for a ball."

"Three?" Lukas interjected.

Aldrich, Gilbert, and Ludwig all turned to stare at Lukas, who had been waiting beside the doorway.

"That's—very kind of you," Lukas added. "To think of me."

Aldrich breathed once through his nose. "You won't be going. The third suit is for me. I have hopes of speaking to our new lord about this lending tax, and I won't be entertained in the threadbare clothes you keep us in."

Despite himself, Lukas reddened. He hadn't even really wanted to go to the ball, but in his one moment of presumption, he knew he'd brought himself to Aldrich's attention, which meant another warning about—

"And besides, you're a wizard," Aldrich added, settling the coins into Gilbert's palm with a clink. "I imagine you'll be much better off here, preparing potions for those who have drank and eaten too much, than at the ball ruining our good name."

"The servant did say _all_ eligible youth should attend," said Ludwig, less for Lukas's sake than in the name of fairness.

"But is he eligible?" Gilbert demanded. "In the history of the kingdom, no wizard has ever been _eligible_ for anything. Not to mention he's a man. And he has nothing to ask the lord for."

Lukas could think of a great many things to ask the lord for, starting with labor laws for employed wizards and ending with better care for orphans like himself and Emil. But he'd already spoken once and doomed himself enough. He nodded sharply and retreated to his shack.

"Alright," he said to himself with a shaking breath, as he retrieved his stash of coins from his hiding place. "I can assume Aldrich will want to regain his savings, which means…he'll be counting coins again." He looked at the five pithy copper coins he'd scrimped away. They wouldn't even buy him a horse.

He sighed and closed the box. "But it's the only chance I have."

Two weeks passed faster than Lukas had imagined they would, now that he had something to count down to. He spent more time in his shack now that the rest of his family occupied themselves with assembling a wardrobe, learning all they could about the new lord, and generally preparing for the ball. He prepared potions to be sold after the ball, but also for himself: emergency healing potions and disguise potions and potions to be sold along the way (regardless that they'd leave a trail for Aldrich to follow, they were the best chance he had at money now), and a tiny one with a courage charm he thought he might need.

Only when the carriage and driver came to the door did he realize that the night of the ball had arrived.

Lukas scurried to the main house, where Gilbert spotted him first.

"Lukas!" he huffed. "I can't get these damn cufflinks on, help me out, will you?"

Lukas came over and silently buttoned them. He pushed away the thought that this might be the last time he'd ever see these men again. If all went well.

"Now, Lukas," Aldrich said, walking down the stairs as if he were his own sort of lord. "You'll be ready to sell at dawn, won't you?"

"Of course," said Lukas quietly.

"We rely on you to rebuild our savings after tonight, you know."

"I know."

Aldrich took one firm look at Lukas. "Look at me."

Lukas looked up, trying not to hesitate. He prayed Aldrich couldn't see his real plans for the night written in his eyes.

"Perhaps I haven't thanked you enough," Aldrich murmured to himself.

Lukas's eyes widened.

Aldrich shook his head. "No matter. There'll be time for that later. Gilbert, Ludwig, the carriage is waiting."

"Try not to die of boredom," Gilbert called back with a cheeky wave. Ludwig only nodded at him before following his father and brother.

Once they'd closed the door, Lukas collapsed back onto one of the small tables in the foyer.

 _Perhaps I haven't thanked you enough._

What did he mean by that? He surely didn't actually— _care?_

Lukas found himself muttering the phrase all the way to his mother's grave, at the corner of the family plot beside Lukas's father.

"He hasn't _thanked_ me enough, Mother," Lukas said to her headstone. This was wrong, he should be saying goodbye, but he was in turns flabbergasted and furious, and years of suppressing the two were beginning to boil over. "You meant that man to be _family?_ That— _slave driver_ who…"

He took several deep, gasping breaths.

"I had to send Emil away, you know," he told her. "He would have worked Emil as hard as he worked me, if not more. Emil could do the spells people really _paid_ for. But you'd know about that."

He recalled the spells his mother had sold, the people who had worn down the path to their home with money to pay and scowls to be asking for help from a witch.

"Did you mean for our home to become a jail?" he asked. The minute he asked the question, he regretted it. His mother might have misjudged Aldrich, might have interpreted his two sons as potential kindness to two more, but she would never have meant to hurt her sons. In the best way she knew, she'd tried to keep them together and fed.

Lukas sighed. A tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. "Forgive me, Mother. I'm just angry. And scared." He looked into the woods. He still remembered the path to Mathias's home, but he'd have to wander it in the dark. He might not get far. "Tonight is my only chance to find Emil and leave this place."

"But are you sure you're going about it the right way?"

Lukas's head snapped up as his heartbeat raced. There, just underneath the edge of the trees at the border of the family's land, was a man in a dark cloak.

"…I suppose you have a better way?" Lukas asked, sounding stronger than he felt.

The man lifted his hood to reveal short blond hair, enormous eyebrows, and green eyes that glinted by the light of the moon rising over the trees. "I might. And all you need to give me in return is something to drink."

Years' worth of fairy tales flashed through Lukas's memory. His mother had mentioned fair folk in the forest, willing to make deals in exchange for trifles, silently testing the character of the humans they encountered.

Lukas eyed his mother's grave, as if looking for a sign.

The sign came from the stranger. "I only have one thing to trade," he said. He rifled through a deep pocket in his cloak and emerged with—

Lukas's breath caught in his throat. The man had Mr. Puffin.

Fair folk tests and Lukas's character be damned.

"One second," said Lukas weakly. As his shack was closer than the house, he scurried to it first and found an empty potion bottle. He took it outside to the pump and filled it with water. Let that be a test of his own, then. Let the fair folk know he was a wizard, and that he was ready to accept this bargain on his own desperate terms.

The man in the cloak raised his eyebrows and smirked when Lukas returned with the filled potion bottle. "A mage then, are you?" asked the man.

"Yes," said Lukas solemnly, passing the bottle to the man. His eyes flickered to the man's hands, but Mr. Puffin seemed to have returned to the man's pocket. "And if you can accept that, I'll make any deal you want."

With less ceremony than Lukas would have liked, the man yanked the bottle out of his hands and drank the whole bottle in several large gulps.

"Ah," he said as he wiped his mouth with his hand. Then he burped. "Do I detect a trace of cold cure?"

Lukas blinked.

"Anyway, now that we've finished that," said the man stepping past Lukas and into the land, "it's right time that we—"

"Wait," said Lukas swiveling around in the grass. "You know potions?"

"Well of course," said the man, and he grinned. "I'm Arthur, and I'm a mage too."

Lukas looked between Arthur's current stance on his land and where he'd just stood. "But you—you were going to make a deal, and you were standing right at the boundary—"

"Like a fair folk?" Arthur took a step closer and pressed the potion bottle back into Lukas's hands. "Yes, your brother told me that would earn your trust quicker than anything. That and the puffin."

Hope, unconfirmed and barely possible until now, clenched Lukas's chest. "My brother."

"Yes, Emil is alive and well. And planning to meet you at the ball tonight, I might add."

Despite himself, Lukas looked down at the potion bottle in his hands, and past it to the same worn tunic he'd mended and re-mended to the point where he couldn't remember its original color.

"Yes, well," said Arthur, following his gaze, "of course I plan to change all that. But first, I believe my assistant should be showing up any—"

Lukas and Arthur both looked up at the sound of rattling wheels on the other side of the house.

Arthur dashed around the building with Lukas in close pursuit, and stepped back to let Lukas examine the most ornate carriage he'd ever seen. It was blue, deep blue, with gold trimming around the doors and the wheels. The driver who stepped down wore a matching colored coat, but in nearly the exact same style as a coat he'd seen just recently—

"You?" Lukas asked the young man who'd announced the ball to their village.

"Me," said the young man coolly, "and believe me, it took _ages_ of waiting for you and your not-brothers to get to the center of town."

"As if you couldn't handle a wait," scoffed Arthur. He ruffled through his pockets and once again took out Mr. Puffin.

"Give it to me," Lukas said sharply. "Wasn't that part of the trade?"

"Truthfully, it was never mine to give," said Arthur, and without further explanation he tossed the stuffed toy and his next comment to the young man. "Now introduce yourself."

The young man caught Mr. Puffin in a fluid motion and returned him—more gently, Lukas noted—to a pocket on his coat. "Leon," said the young man, offering a bow. "Close friend of your brother's, and of the new lord."

"…My brother befriended you."

"Freed me from a curse when he was twelve years old, actually. The friendship came after."

"…Emil has been living a more interesting life than I expected," Lukas muttered to himself.

"Just wait until you talk to Mathias," said Leon, offering his first hint of a smile.

If news of Emil's wellbeing had constricted Lukas's chest, hope about Mathias nearly split him in two. Before he knew it, tears had sprung to his eyes. "He's—Mathias?"

"Yes, he's fine too," said Arthur, speaking absently as he walked around Lukas, examining his body for something unknown. "Gave me a _bloody_ scare, though, dropping that beanstalk right beside my house. Scared me and Francis half to death."

"Where is Francis, anyway?" Leon asked.

"At the palace tittering about the party, where else?" Arthur replied with a roll of his eyes. "Now, Lukas, if you wouldn't mind standing with your arms out—"

"Why?" Lukas demanded.

Arthur gave him a look. "You can't handle suspense for one moment, can you?" He forced Lukas's limp arms into a T-shaped position, tapped his legs to force Lukas to widen his stance, and pursed his lips.

"What, no caster?" Leon asked when Arthur held out his hand. "I even have a _puffin_ , and I'm not a mage."

"Would you be quiet and let a professional work?" asked Arthur, though not without a hint of fondness. Then, murmuring something Lukas vaguely recognized but couldn't hear, he waved his hand over Lukas.

For a few moments, Lukas saw nothing but golden lights around him and felt nothing but a slightly heavier fabric settle upon him. When he shook himself out of his daze and looked down, he saw…

Quite possibly the most beautiful garments he'd ever worn. A tailored midnight blue coat with silver stitching and shining silver buttons that mirrored the moon, soft matching britches and shining white stockings, and—

"Glass slippers?" Leon asked before Lukas could.

"He was still holding the potion bottle," said Arthur defensively, "and it was material that could be used, and it's an exhausting spell to cast—"

"Yeah, well, just wait until we get to the ball and a _real_ professional can redo it," said Leon. "Anything else, oh mighty mage?"

"I'm beginning to regret that you were the only one available to come along," muttered Arthur. To Lukas he said, "Come on, we're your escorts for tonight. At least until we reach the castle, where you'll be free to find your brother."

Lukas paused. His eyes flickered back to the shack, where his meager copper coins were waiting. Arthur probably didn't know how little he had, but he could surely guess at Lukas's intentions.

"There'll be time enough for that later, lad," said Arthur softly. "Let's have tonight be a happy night."

Hesitantly, Lukas nodded and accepted Leon's hand to be helped into the carriage.

Lukas stared out the window as they rode, his nerves twisting his insides. They had left the village before he knew it.

"I suppose the carriage is magic too?" he asked Arthur, who sat across from him.

"No, just a carriage," Arthur replied, frankly looking a little sick from the bumpiness of the ride. "My specialty is less in conjuring than in curse-breaking."

"But Emil was the one who broke Leon's curse, I thought."

"Well," said Arthur, "I'm still learning. As is he."

Lukas bit his tongue before he could add himself to the list. He'd stopped learning long ago.

Leon had hinted that he might speak to Mathias. So, it was fair to assume that Emil and Mathias would both be at this ball, and most likely together. So that would mean that, after tonight, Lukas would have to find, hide, and protect two people, and not simply the one brother he'd expected.

The thought should have frightened him, but instead he felt oddly comforted. Emil and Mathias were both alive and well, and at least well off enough to be attending a ball. All of his wishes were coming true.

Even, for one night, his one wish for himself.

Forest gave way to lantern-lit roads, and then to a dwindling line of carriages at the foot of an enormous castle nestled between forest and mountains alike.

"His lordship must have been a lucky man, to have bought this sort of title," Lukas commented offhandedly to Arthur.

"Remarkably so," Arthur said with a roll of his eyes, but when Lukas looked at him, he didn't explain any further. Instead, his eyes widened. "Ah, I forgot something!" With more murmured words and a spurt from his fingertips, he showered Lukas in a dust of glitter.

"What is this for?" Lukas asked, trying not to inhale it.

"A glamor," Arthur responded simply. "Wouldn't want those not-brothers of your to recognize you, let alone the rest of the village."

Ah, yes. For a brief few moments, Lukas had forgotten he was a wizard and therefore a pariah. He turned to Arthur. "Why are you doing this for me? Why the carriage, why the spells?"

Arthur paused, and then gave Lukas a small and surprisingly soft smile. "I may not come out of a fairy tale, lad. But I do believe in them."

At that moment, the carriage door open, and Leon stood outside waiting with his hand outstretched for Lukas to take.

"Go on now," said Arthur with a wave of his hands. "They're waiting."

Lukas didn't have to ask who "they" were.

* * *

Leon walked him as far as the steps, but Lukas walked up the steps and through the enormous entry corridor alone. At the end of the hall, a blond man with his hair tied in a messy bun was speaking quietly with an assistant. When he saw Lukas approaching, he straightened and offered a beaming smile.

"Well, it is our late arrival!" he said with a foreign accent, stronger than Arthur's, that Lukas couldn't place. "Your name for the announcement, then?" he asked.

Did Arthur's glamor work for names as well as faces? Lukas paused, and the man caught his hesitation. "No matter," he said with the same smile. He gestured to the two men stationed near the doors.

Lukas stood before the doors as they opened to reveal an immense ballroom, decorated with several glittering chandeliers and milling with coats and dresses of all colors. At the sound of the doors opening, many guests turned to look at the new arrival.

Lukas held his breath.

"A new arrival," called the blond man at his side, "and an eligible youth."

Lukas would have contested that—he wasn't here to marry anyone, only to find his brother and his friend—if he hadn't been held stock still by the attention of the entire room. But there was no judgment in their eyes. Many of the ladies and a few of the men had their mouths open, and a whisper broke out through the crowd.

But no one was laughing or jeering at the wizard.

Lukas's heart gave a lurch when he caught sight of Ludwig. But Ludwig was busy murmuring to a young brunette man holding his arm, glancing at Lukas with intrigue but not recognition. A few people away from him, Gilbert was doing the same with a dark-haired violinist taking a refreshment.

Nobody recognized him.

Lukas straightened his shoulders.

He walked as steadily as he could down the right flight of stairs. The band started a dance as soon as he reached the floor, which detracted most but not all of the attention away from Lukas. The people near him spared him a few more glances before craning their necks, most likely for their friends or possibly for the young lord.

How was Lukas going to find who he was looking for in this crowd?

Someone whistled in his direction.

Lukas looked around but couldn't find the source of it, despite that his heart leapt at the familiarity of the sound. Then he heard it again and realized where he knew it from. Mathias had used the same call to get his attention in the village.

As he realized this, a door opened under the staircase, and a familiar shock of golden hair popped out.

Lukas dashed to the door and was yanked inside.

Mathias's hands were at his face, on his shoulders, through his hair, as if _he_ had any right to be the one checking that Lukas was in fact alive and not just a dream. Mathias's eyes finally found his, and he breathed his name. "Lukas." His entire face broadened with his smile. "Lukas!" He wrapped his arms around Lukas, whose chest ached with something due to spill out at the feeling of Mathias's cheek against his head, of Lukas's ear against his chest, listening to both of their heartbeats thrum and sing.

Then Lukas stomped on Mathias's foot.

Mathias let go with a yelp.

"I thought you were _dead_ ," Lukas snapped, trying to hold back the tremor of his voice. "The beanstalk fell right where you lived, and you never came to the village, you never sent _word_ —"

"I wanted to!" Mathias held his hands up. "I tried to! But I couldn't go as a woodcarver anymore, and suddenly I had to have all these meetings with banks, and then with the nobility and then the _king_ —"

Belatedly, Lukas realized that Mathias was wearing the same red that Leon was wearing when he made the ball announcement to Lukas's village. Not only that, but Mathias wore _medals_ , medals he surely couldn't have won for anything, and his epaulettes were almost princely, like a—

"You're a _lord?_ "

Mathias grinned sheepishly, and his hand escaped to the back of his neck. He hadn't changed nearly as much as Lukas had expected.

" _Lord Kohler_ ," Lukas breathed. "I never knew your family name before."

"I didn't have one before," said Mathias, "but they made one up for me based on, I dunno, my ancestors or something. I didn't pay that much attention. Arthur and Francis did a lot of the management."

The mention of Arthur raised a new question. "How come you can recognize me?" asked Lukas. "Don't tell me becoming a noble makes you impervious to magic or something."

"Nah, Francis just gave me a countercharm. You met Francis, he was the guy who introduced you when you walked in." Mathias's shoulders fell, and he swept some fallen hair out of Lukas's face. Lukas became acutely aware that they were in a servant storage space under a grand staircase. "But that's not important now. I missed you. I wanted to tell you as soon as I knew I'd get the title."

"Then why didn't you?" Lukas asked. "All this time I was waiting, and…"

"Well," said Mathias, biting his lip in a very unfair manner, "I wanted you to see me on my terms, I guess. Not in my study, not from my carriage. Just me, like I've always been."

Lukas snorted. His hands somehow found their way to Mathias's shoulders. "They could put you in a _crown_ and to me you'd be as you've always been."

"Handsome, right?"

" _Good._ And charming, without meaning to be, most of the time. And goofy."

"Better stop you there before you think of something worse," Mathias said, and Lukas laughed for the first time he could remember in a while. When he looked back at Mathias, Mathias was staring at him as if he were a sunset, or a night sky, like he was something to be awed and made majestic.

"You were always so hard to impress. But so handsome," said Mathias. "Your face broke my heart when I first saw you. I thought you were a fair folk."

"Close," Lukas muttered.

Mathias cupped Lukas's jaw in his hands. "You know I don't care you're a mage, right?"

Lukas's eyes slowly, slowly met Mathias's. "I know."

They held their stance for a moment. In the distance, the orchestra ended its current piece. "Well," said Mathias, "I guess we have to attend our own party."

" _Our_ own party?" Lukas asked.

Mathias pressed his lips together, and Lukas got the distinct feeling he'd said something he wasn't supposed to. "If you want it to be," he said quietly.

Lukas suddenly, belatedly, had a very good idea of who'd sent Arthur and Leon and the carriage.

"…Can we find Emil first?" Lukas asked. He took one of Mathias's hands off of his cheek, and squeezed it. "That would make the night complete."

Mathias's expression became gentler, and he offered a small smile. "I understand."

* * *

Mathias entertained guests while Lukas scoured the crowd for his brother. He scanned the dance floor, the pockets of women and businessmen and young men staring jealously at the young lord and then at their desired women, and he even went to the second-floor balcony which overlooked the festivities. He carefully avoided Aldrich and his gentlemen, but otherwise looked everywhere.

Finally, he ended up exhausted at the refreshment table.

"Such a handsome man shouldn't be pouring his own drink."

Lukas turned around to scold Mathias for the teasing, but when he turned around, he caught the warning as well as the teasing in his smile. Nobody knew that Mathias and Lukas knew each other. As far as the onlookers—and there were plenty of them—knew, this was a first-time, potentially magical meeting.

"Far be it from me to deny a chivalrous man," replied Lukas, feeling like one of his old fairy tale books. He set the bottle of wine down for Mathias to pour from him. When he'd finished, Lukas bowed in thanks.

"Many thanks, my lord." Now he felt like a servant.

"Could you be troubled for a name?" replied Mathias. "Or shall I call you the mystery gentleman all night?"

Lukas offered a slight grin. "Perhaps you shall."

He'd only taken a sip of wine when the orchestra began with a new tune, a waltz. As if on cue, Mathias offered his hand. "Might I have this dance, then, mystery gentleman?"

Lukas had no idea how to dance. But the steps of a waltz didn't look overly complicated. "If my lord desires," he replied, and took Mathias's hand. The fact that he was doing it before an increasingly large crowd of spectators electrified the motion. But when he looked up into Mathias's eyes, Mathias was smiling with such reassurance that Lukas forgot about the crowd.

Mathias pulled him to the edge of the dance floor, where the other dancers made way for the nobleman and his unknown partner at the center.

Mathias held him close and took the lead. "I'm so glad I can finally dance with you," he murmured. "I think the most people are going to say about me tomorrow is that how many feet I stepped on."

"If you dare step on my feet, _my lord_ , I'll be adding to the gossip."

Mathias laughed as if he'd said something coquettish, but Lukas heard the real amusement. "Any luck finding Emil?" he asked. "He said he'd arrive right around the time you did."

"Why—where did he go?"

"He didn't say."

"I'm worried about him."

"Hey, he's sixteen years old—he's pretty mature now."

"He's still too young."

"Hey, you sent him to me when we were only eighteen—"

"And I wish I hadn't—"

"Wait," said Mathias, now hurt, "I know I was young, but I think I took good care of him considering—"

"No, I meant I wish you didn't have to—"

A loud CRACK resounded over their heads.

A shower of glistening dust fell over the two of them, not unlike the dust that Arthur had showered Lukas with to disguise him to the guests. Belatedly, Lukas realized that this was exactly what it was—the same charm done twice, and therefore, the countercharm.

The attendees from his village began to gasp.

"LUKAS!" shouted Aldrich from the overlooking balcony. "Get away from his lordship at _once!_ "

"He will not!"

The dancers parted for another man in a cloak, similar to Arthur's. But the wearer was younger, his hair lighter, and his expression angrier.

"Emil," Lukas breathed.

Emil kept his eyes trained on Aldrich for a few seconds, and then expanded his gaze to the crowd's. His shoulders were strong, but his hands were hidden under the cloak. When Leon silently stepped behind him, he spoke again.

"I, Mage Emil, breaker of curses and protector of villages," he pronounced in a voice too strong for a sixteen-year-old, "have witnessed the treatment of witches and wizards in these provinces. I have seen their shame and their slander.

"But you were wrong," said Emil, raising an open hand to gesture at Lukas, who was still halfway in Mathias's arms. "Lukas was the son of Witch Valka, but he is no wizard." He raised his eyes to meet Aldrich's again, and raised his voice for all to hear clearly: " _I_ am the only mage in all the province."

Lukas glanced around. He couldn't see Arthur or Francis anywhere, but he knew instinctively that Emil was either lying or not counting them. Not to mention himself.

"It was _I_ who grew the beanstalk to find a nobler lord than our own. It was _I_ who favored the one who climbed it. And it is _I_ , now, who protect your villages, _your homes_ , from what lurks in the woods."

Behind him, Leon snorted and nearly smiled.

"And the potions?" Gilbert had the nerve to call out. "You're telling me Lukas never made those potions?"

"Any fool can put together the ingredients, but the charms to activate them were mine, hidden in the bottles he brewed with. Even now, he wears my mark."

Lukas's feet suddenly felt very hot, and the floor beneath him lit up. Mathias stepped backward to reveal that Lukas's shoes—made of the potion bottles, he realized, he remembered now—were glowing for all to see.

Emil stepped closer. "My potion bottles were used throughout your village. But only the _true_ lady, to match the _true_ lord, would find the potion bottles turned into slippers on the night of Lord Kohler's ball.

"The man who climbed the beanstalk," Emil concluded, moving to stand between Mathias and Lukas, "and the man who discovered the shoes. These were my tests, to _preserve_ our towns rather than divide them in hatred. To discover kindness and compassion"—and here he definitely looked at Lukas, with the smallest hint of a smile—"in ordinary men." He snapped his head to the crowd. "You have your lord and lady."

And then, with a _crack_ to rival the one that had broken Lukas's glamor, he disappeared.

The crowd launched into talks and arguments, far from a murmur but not quite an uproar. Lukas looked between accusing and confused eyes, wishing more and more that he could have seen his brother again in a more normal fashion.

Mathias stepped to his side. "I can signal Francis. He'll send for the carriage again, he can take you away if—"

"Ahem."

Beside them, Leon stood on one knee with his head down.

"Long life the lord, and"—he looked up at Lukas for a brief moment—"other lord."

The dancers surrounding Leon examined him and murmured.

"If the same mage," said Leon loudly, "the _only_ mage who tames huldre and brews healing potions, has chosen these men as our best leaders…" He lowered his voice as he bowed his head again. "Then I will follow them."

"Long live the lords!" called a voice from the balcony. It was Francis, Lukas knew, but he disappeared from sight so that anyone might have said it.

"Long live the lords!" echoed the brunette man on Ludwig's arm. Ludwig turned to look at him in confusion, but with a single glance from the young man's soft eyes, Ludwig sighed, turned to Lukas, and bowed his head.

"Long live the lords," recited the orchestra as one. Gilbert, who lingered near the strings section—waiting for the violinist he'd spoken to earlier?—frowned, but echoed them.

More and more voices joined, some less enthusiastic than others, and the crowd increasingly bowed, curtsied, and even kneeled as Leon had done. Lukas heard their cries echoing around the rafters and looked to Mathias for confirmation—that this was really happening, that Emil was the one who had done it, that for once in his life he was in a room full of people and _safe_.

Mathias took his hand.

They both stood taller.

* * *

"That was the best improvisation I've ever seen," said Leon as they watched their brothers dance from the balcony. Lukas had finally gotten some wine in him and was loosening up, and Mathias seemed drunk on Lukas's presence alone.

"What, the crackling magic?" asked Emil as he sipped from his own cup of wine. He'd placed a glamor on himself, but taken the cloak off and cast a quieting spell around himself and Leon just to be safe. His coat was light blue, not a match to Lukas's but nowhere near Mathias's dark red.

"No, the potion bottles as glass slippers," said Leon. "I mean, I know you were going for the whole 'he was never a mage' thing, but making it sound like you charmed the bottles to fulfill some sort of prophecy…"

"Really? That felt like a bit of a reach to me."

"The sonorous charm probably helped."

"If my voice broke during that…"

"It didn't."

"Good."

They took sips of their wine cups and leaned on the balcony's banister.

"Wasn't Francis going more for that fairy tale from his homeland?" Leon asked. "Wasn't Lukas supposed to go home and be found by Mathias later?"

"Not enough of an audience for that," said Emil. "I wasn't about to rely on rumors to tell everyone Lukas wasn't a wizard."

"Which he is."

"Of course he is."

Leon looked at Emil, who was fighting a smile. "But you're a better one than him," he teased.

"I wouldn't say _that_ —"

"Just younger, better studied, better with spells—"

"At least Lukas does potions better—"

"Come on Emil," said Leon evenly. "Admit it. You're proud of yourself."

Emil looked down at his brothers, who couldn't bear to look away from each other for even a moment. He hadn't seen Mathias look so happy or Lukas look so at peace in a long while. "…Okay. I'm _a little_ proud of myself."

"Yeah, well." Leon kissed his cheek. "I'm a little proud of you too."

Emil widened his eyes and very nearly dropped his cup off the balcony. When he turned back to Leon, Leon was staring out at the dancers again.

"…What?" said Leon, when Emil didn't look away.

"How long have you been saving that for?"

"Shut up, I'm not a pedophile."

"Technically you are. You're eighteen and a few centuries, and I'm sixteen, and—"

"And maybe I've just always been grateful to you for breaking my curse, alright? Now can we drop it? I'll take it back if I have to."

Emil stopped examining him and gazed out. Leon swirled the wine in his cup.

"Suppose, hypothetically," said Emil, "that I wanted to kiss you back."

"How long would you _hypothetically_ have been wanting to do that?"

"When was that time I accidentally walked on you changing?"

"Before the _beanstalk?_ "

"Or maybe it was that time you saved that last strawberry for me instead of eating it yourself."

" _Way_ before the beanstalk." Leon grinned at him. "A little kid crush."

"I was thirteen," Emil grumbled. "And you ate _everything_ your first year of being human again, or don't you remem—"

Leon kissed him on the lips.

Emil trembled out a sigh as they broke apart.

"So what now, oh mighty _only_ mage?" Leon asked. It should have sounded teasing, but it didn't.

Emil flickered his eyes down to Lukas and Mathias, who were engaged in a kiss of their own. "Not sure," he admitted. "The fairy tales always ended at _happily ever after._ "

"Sounds to me like the best part," said Leon. "We get to decide what that is."

* * *

Arthur and Francis left soon after Lukas's and Mathias's wedding. The province now had a competent mage, Emil, and so they were no longer needed. They argued about whose home to return to, Francis's or Arthur's, before Francis mentioned a friend named Antonio a few days away who might want some help. Apparently he'd fallen in love with a young man and his angelic voice in a forest, but was due to marry a prince whose entire castle had fallen asleep and become guarded by a dragon. Arthur figured he had just the spell.

Lukas moved out of his family home the day after the ball. He wouldn't let anyone accompany him except Emil. What words were exchanged between Lukas and Aldrich remained a mystery, but when they parted ways, they shook hands.

Aldrich was ready to help his son Gilbert join in business with the local flower girl, but Gilbert had fallen in love with a dark-haired violinist and decided to take up a flute and follow his company. (By coincidence, he became drinking buddies and then friends with the mage who took care of the company, a spirited young man named Vlad.) Aldrich instead turned to his other son, moving with him to two villages away, where Ludwig had discovered both a university and the bright-eyed professor's grandson who met him after class.

Mathias and Lukas worked in tandem to make life better for those with the common lives they'd sprouted from. After several years of wise and prosperous leadership, they asked the "only mage" to help them divine an heir. Mage Emil only led them to one of the newly-erected orphanages and smiled as they took home the first child they fell in love with. She was raised with fairy tales, the occasional health potion, and a sworn determination to find her prince before he found her.

Mage Emil and his former huldre partner guarded the woods, just as Mage Emil claimed he always had been doing. Once they'd cleared the enormous beanstalk, they set to work reviving the magic of the province. Leon led them to unexplored corners and unmet creatures of the forest, and Emil helped where he could and passed their larger requests back to his brothers. They alternated living between Emil's childhood home and Arthur's former cottage—now Leon's, reclaimed—for years upon years, until they wearied of the woods just as Mathias and Lukas wearied of ruling. Mathias's and Lukas's daughter relieved their duties, Lukas relieved Emil's and Leon's, and Emil and Leon spent a happy retirement exploring the world and what it had to offer.

And so, through magic and love, they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
